INTERVIEW WARREN GATLAND:PERHAPS APPEARANCES can be deceptive. Maybe we are all guilty of applying some amateur psychology. But if a psychologist with not the faintest knowledge of rugby had been plonked into the hub of Wednesday's Six Nations launch when the coaches and captains conducted their media interviews, it wouldn't have taken long to figure out who are the reigning champions and favourites.
Maybe it was because they were the last to do their turn at the “dailies” table, but somehow Warren Gatland and Ryan Jones, with his baritone Welsh accent, carried a distinct air of assured self-confidence. For starters, Marc Lievremont didn’t even show, and both Joe Maso and Lionel Nallet spoke through an interpreter.
Nick Mallett was the most articulate, but even though Sergio Parisse was sporting two black eyes as testimony to the broken nose he suffered courtesy of a younger squad-mate the day before, everyone knew the talkative South African had the weakest hand to play with.
Martin Johnson and Steve Borthwick grimly handled an almost ceaseless procession of questions about Matt Stevens’ failed drugs test, and even Brian O’Driscoll seemed to morph into the studied modesty which Declan Kidney has long since mastered.
Frank Hadden and Mike Blair didn’t hide a hint of Scottish giddiness, not least about having Wales first up at home, but then along came Gatland and Jones – all smiles and chat, mischievously toying with questions and readily acknowledging a heightened expectancy.
Favouritism, said Gatland, was a source of excitement. There’s more to come, according to Jones. England? “I like the look of their Saxons squad,” Gatland quipped, a comment designed to question Martin Johnson’s selection policy.
“I’ll fire a few handgrenades in every now and then if it helps them,” he said.
But he is aware that an opening win away to Scotland would immediately make Wales look tough to beat again, whereas a defeat, with England and France in Paris to come, would put them up against the wall.
Nevertheless, later on, one-on-one, Wales’ favourite Kiwi is no less chirpy. How do you follow a Grand Slam? “Last year was easier in terms of no expectations,” he admits. “I think if you spoke to most Welsh people before last year’s Six Nations and asked if Wales were to finish third they would have been overjoyed.
“So what we achieved was pretty special, but following that will be very difficult. When was the last time Wales did back-to-back?”
The last – and only time – was 1908 and 1909. Even in their golden 70s, Wales never won back to back Slams, although they did follow up the Slam of ’78 with a Triple Crown and Championship. England have done it twice, in 1913-14, and 1991-92, while the French did it in 1997-98, although more recently, the French did win successive titles in 2006-07.
Put it all together, and even though they are the tournament favourites, history would suggest the odds are heavily against Wales repeating the title, let alone a second successive Slam.
Then there’s the old Second Season Syndrome. Wales provided the most spectacular example of this when following up their Grand Slam of 2005 by imploding painfully and very publicly.
If there is any hint of second season syndrome for Gatland it is more in the shape of new players coming into the Welsh fold, citing the example of Andy Powell. “He has burst on to the scene and has become a player that people are watching pretty closely. But yeah, I think teams will be gunning for us this year, not just as defending champions but also because there’s a lot of competition for places with the Lions as well.”
In many instances too, first-time achievers don’t return with the same hunger.
“Probably so,” admits Gatland, adding, “and Wales is probably a nation that likes to throw a lot of accolades on their players”.
But such are the standards set by Gatland and Shaun Edwards that any Welsh player contracting delusions of grandeur or achievement would be quickly brought into line. There’s also the sense that for all the star culture in Welsh rugby – more akin to English football, say, than Irish rugby – there’s a youthful hunger there for more success.
“Our expectations as coaches are about us putting them under a lot of pressure and telling them how good they can be if they work really hard on the training ground and telling them that if they want to be one of the best teams in the world, there’s a certain level we’ve got to train at, a certain intensity we’ve got to be at and a certain level of expectation of performance in the way we play.”
He says the feedback from the players backs this ultra-demanding environment.
He cites the example of the game against South Africa last November. “We had limited preparation time and it was a game we probably should have won. I went into the changing room and I went absolutely berserk at the players.
“I told them that at key moments in the game we weren’t clinical enough, that if we want to be one of the best teams in the world we’d have to avail of big moments. I was absolutely furious.
“The players were shocked and some of them told me later that if we’d held the world champions to five points before there’d have been high fives in the changing rooms. But that isn’t good enough. We want to be better than that.”
The following week, for some of the Welsh players, there was the new experience of actually “dominating” the All Blacks for the first 40 minutes, and the final November Test at home to Australia was about putting those experiences to good use.
“As far as we were concerned the learning was over, and we needed to deliver a performance, and it was great that we did that against Australia in that last game. We probably should have won by more, but the pleasing thing for me as a coach was the progression over the autumn, and the team were developing and improving all the time.
“I still think there’s a lot of upside in this team. I still think we can improve a lot more physically, become a better team, but it’s about how we’re going to respond to the pressures placed on us.”
Wales’ win was also a striking reward for their determination to keep taking on the best, for this was their sixth meeting with a Tri-Nations side since the last World Cup, at least two more than any of their Six Nations rivals. In 11 games under Gatland, Wales have suffered four defeats – three to South Africa and one to the All Blacks. It was also the first win by a Northern Hemisphere team over a Tri-Nations side in 21 attempts since the World Cup.
Gatland cites how shattered the Welsh players were at the end of November, having played all three Tri-Nations heavyweights as well as Canada that month.
“We worked, we learned and mentally, we toughened up, but in the Southern Hemisphere they would have done that, taken a week or two off, and then do it again. So it’s just learning to play at that level of intensity all the time and then just fronting up under pressure, making decisions under pressure and operating at that white hot level when it really matters. And that’s why our policy is to play them as much as we can.”
All of which probably explains why Wales, of all the European teams, look most like a Tri-Nations team. Even before the ELVs they were eschewing kicks to touch in last season’s Six Nations as part of an overall gameplan to keep the ball in play longer, while combining this with the kind of ultra-physical and aggressive rush defence which Gatland, along with Edwards, has always favoured. Indeed, Jake White freely admits to having copied Gatland in this.
They backed this up with their high tempo, high intensity offloading game, and it was striking how much Wales were simply prepared to have a real go more so than their fellow Europeans last November.
“I think when you watch us, we’re trying to play rugby,” says Gatland, “and people are excited about that. I think the most positive thing about that is that referees think they are refereeing a team that are disciplined, going to try and play good rugby and score points. Hopefully, from our point of view, we’re an easy team to referee.”
Interestingly, he also says: “”here’s a responsibility in sport to entertain and to be positive, and that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”
At the World Cup draw on December 1st, Mallett told Gatland that of the European teams, Wales were playing the best rugby by a long way. Gatland took pleasure in that compliment.
If Wales are favourites then, as Mallet has also observed, there would appear to be little between England, France, Ireland and Scotland going into the Championship.
“I think that’s the great thing about this year’s tournament. For year on year, France and England were favourites, but now we’re slight favourites and everyone else is really close. So anyone’s capable of winning it.”
He knows the Irish scene better than most, and even eight years on from his last Six Nations with Ireland, will have worked with several of the players still in the squad.
“You can’t deny Declan’s pedigree, can you, in terms of Ireland Under-19s, schoolboys, Munster, Ireland A and Ireland assistant coach?” he adds, with mischievous glint.
“He has a fantastic pedigree and the challenge for him now is marrying the Munster/Leinster players, as well as some Ulster players. Declan’s going into a situation that I know pretty well, with all the politics involved.
“When I was questioned about the difference between Wales and Ireland, I said the difference is the players are centrally contracted in Ireland, so you’ve got first call on them, but there’s a much more, perhaps political, board-type style running the game in Ireland.
“Administratively, they’re probably not as good as they could be, whereas in Wales I think they’ve got a pretty streamlined board in terms of the way the game is run, but because the players aren’t centrally contracted we don’t always have access to them. So there’s positives and negatives in both environments.”
As he has already alluded to, the presence of Gatland, Edwards and Robert Howley on the Lions’ coaching ticket makes Wales even more of a prized scalp.
Furthermore, unlike last year’s Six Nations, Gatland admits he’s already starting watching games with a bit of a Lions hat on.
He was part of a Lions reconnaissance mission last week, visiting six cities, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth in six days, to check out hotels, training facilities and so on.
There was, he said, “a huge amount” of buzz about a tour that is still almost five months away. “They were very, very helpful, and I think they realise how big the Lions is. They couldn’t do enough for us.”
All in all, Gatland is in a good place. He went home to the New Zealand summer over Christmas and his wife Trudi travels to Wales for the England and France games before they go home to New Zealand for a couple of weeks and so sympathetic to Gatland’s circumstances are his “incredibly supportive” employers in the Welsh Union that after the Lions tour he will take “a significant break” before returning to Wales in September.
A huge proponent of the benefits of diet and conditioning, Gatland enthuses about the improvements in the facilities at the Vale of Glamorgan in the way home owners talk about house extensions.
If he’s under pressure at all, it doesn’t remotely show. By rights, last year’s Slam and the rapid headway of his Welsh team should give him plenty of leeway yet the fact remains if Welsh supporters and media alike would have been content with third place last season, because they finished first they’ll be disappointed with second this year.
“And rightly so,” says Gatland. “It’s how we judge ourselves. It’s about performance. If we train well and we play well we’ve got a good chance of retaining this. We’ve got three games away from home, we’ve got France in Paris, our last game is against Ireland and it’s a very tough tournament. But if we play to our potential we’re going to be a tough team to beat and that’s our whole focus and challenge as coaches.
“If the players perform to their potential, we’re not a bad side. So if we don’t we’ve let ourselves down.” No pressure, then.
