Gatland learns to gauge valley highs and lows

Entering his fifth Six Nations as coach, Warren Gatland reflects on how the World Cup proved a sea change for Wales, writes GERRY THORNLEY

IT’S A funny thing about the Welsh, and we’re not talking about Max Boyce, funny bloke though he is. All week prior to that World Cup quarter-final, the confidence had been oozing out of their pores, from players, management and media alike. It appeared almost too cocky by half.

But then this is the Welsh. They have always been a rugby nation of extremes. Their head coach is either the Great Redeemer or in need of beheading, with little by way of opinion in between. Perhaps it’s something to do with their rich rugby heritage. What with all those stellar names from the 1970s that roll off the tongue of supporters around the world, and not just in the valleys, they can do cocky too.

Warren Gatland is entering his fifth Six Nations as their head coach, and appears to have a handle on them. “I think Wales have two extremes,” he observes. “We’re incredibly dangerous with our backs to the wall or incredibly dangerous when we’re playing with a lot of confidence, and we were playing with a huge amount of confidence at that stage of the tournament.”

Which is also why, more so than most, the 2011 World Cup will always be the one that got away for Wales and Gatland, and after the manner of their heartbreaking 9-8 semi-final defeat to France, the final was not particularly easy to watch.

“I just wonder, looking at the All Blacks’ performance against France, had they played their “final” against Australia? They had played really well against Australia in the semi-final but didn’t quite back it up. I think if we had beaten France we would have been even better the next week. It was a big ‘what if’ or ‘what might have been’ but you’ve just to put it behind you. We all feel a little bit empty with that but you can’t do much about that.”

Looking back on that quarter-final, it’s doubtful Wales played better or there was a higher quality performance in that round. Gatland makes the point that they benefited from having a very tough group, featuring South Africa, Samoa and Fiji.

“I saw a sea change in Wales, which I hadn’t seen before, at half-time against Samoa when we were down 10-6 and the players just turned around and said: ‘We are not losing this. We’ve been through too much, we’ve worked too hard. We are not losing this’. And I just stood back and thought ‘wow, I haven’t seen that response from a Welsh team before’. Before, they might have been looking for inspiration from somewhere else; they might have been heads down a little bit, thinking: ‘how do we get out of this. Can we win this?’ They were just confident in their physical fitness and their preparation and stuff. To me that was a huge moment.”

Wales were also tactically on the money that day against Ireland in Wellington. Not only did they read Ireland and defend smartly with their chop-tackling of Ireland’s prime backrow ball carriers, they also attacked Ireland’s most vulnerable points and even threw in a curve ball less than a minute before kick-off when Shane Williams and George North exchanged wings so as the latter was marking Tommy Bowe for any cross kicks or reverse restarts.

“Sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not,” says Gatland. Even more pertinently, his players executed pretty much everything accurately, “but in saying that, Ireland were a little unlucky a couple of times. When they didn’t go for goal and went for a try they were very close to scoring from a couple of driven lineouts, and that potentially changes the game as well.”

Cue the semi-final against a desultory French team and the infamous red card shown to Sam Warburton in the 18th minute. Despite this, Wales had 60 per cent of the territory and the possession, missed 14 points in kicks and lost to three Morgan Parra penalties out of three.

“It’s strange. In that first 17 minutes I wasn’t nervous at all. I felt ‘we’re just going to win this game comfortably’. I just felt that. All of a sudden, with the sending-off, my original thought was to get to my feet, kick a chair in the coaches’ box, and think ‘two quality sides, a man down with an hour to go, you lose by 20 or 30 points. That’s what should happen’. And we just hung in there and hung in there, and really had a chance to win it. Should have won it.”

Nor has his view of the red card dimmed, even though Alain Rolland was adhering to an explicit directive from his boss Paddy O’Brien. “No, I just think he got it wrong. This is my personal opinion – and I understand that under the letter of the law he was right – for me, it was the intention. A winger’s running at full pace, and when he sees Sam shift off late to defend him and he backs out of the tackle. Sam’s lined up to hit him and he said that when he hit him there was nothing there. It was almost like the guy was jumping backwards, and you see Sam let him go because he realised that with the impact he’s potentially lifted him.

“I just think in a World Cup semi-final, with a billion people watching, he just could have taken a little bit of time and consulted with his touch-judges and maybe just said ‘this warrants a yellow card; let’s not ruin a World Cup semi-final by sending him off’. Because it wasn’t a kick, it wasn’t a punch, it wasn’t a stiff-arm. He made an unfortunate tackle without trying to deliberately hurt the player and, to me, that was the whole thing; the intention.”

Plenty of water has passed under the bridge since the World Cup, and the renewal of Celtic rivalries finds Wales much more affected by injuries.

Gatland observes that Irish rugby is very healthy right now and admires the IRFU’s system. And if the same system applied in Wales? “It would make a massive difference, yeah, even to the point that everyone is centrally contracted, or is on a Union contract, and you centrally contract all the support staff. So you’re driving that as well.”

Nevertheless, he still holds to the firm belief the World Cup was a significant turning point for Welsh international rugby, not least in demonstrating to the players that they could have the fitness levels and physical strength to take on anybody.

Even at club level, Gatland has always believed in upping conditioning and fitness levels during the season, and he remains the leading disciple of the cryotherapy ice chambers in Poland. The Welsh squad decamped there again last week to reignite the togetherness that was fostered over two camps prior to the World Cup.

“I think there’s something in the cryotherapy in terms of player recovery. I think, definitely, when you go into a camp somewhere that doesn’t have the same distractions as you have at home, there’s obviously benefits to that.”

Wales bucked the perceived wisdom that a World Cup contender had to be relatively mature rather than callow, but as he showed in blooding five debutants simultaneously when Ireland turned a corner with that 44-22 win over Scotland almost a dozen years ago, Gatland is never averse to pitching young players into the Test environment.

“Sometimes you’ve just got to show faith in young players. I think there’s two points to it. Sometimes you start a youngster and he’s just keen and enthusiastic, but they’ll often bring the best out in some of the older players because they become pretty switched on as well, realising they’ve got a couple of youngsters they’ve got to look after, and that helps them as well in terms of their preparation.”

Whereas Wales show five changes, Ireland feature all but three of the same starting XV, albeit one of the missing duo being Brian O’Driscoll, who has missed only five of 60 games in the tournament since he made his Six Nations debut under Gatland in 2000.

“I think Paul O’Connell is a fantastic captain but the leadership Brian gives, the direction he gives, the way he reads a game, will be missed.

“Having had him as a young player and obviously as an incredibly talented player, but then having worked with him on the Lions in 2009 I saw him go from a young player who was still learning the game, to one of the best players in the world in terms of understanding the game and understanding the concepts of how a game should be played. I was really impressed with him on the Lions.”

“Paul was great for the Lions, and backed up by Brian. They complement each other well. Either one of them could do the job just as admirably as the other, and if it hadn’t been for Brian O’Driscoll, Paul probably would have captained Ireland a lot more.”

That Gatland has become so diplomatic, scarcely lobbing a verbal grenade in the direction of opponents for yonks, may be something to do with the post-tournament appointment of the next Lions head coach, be it Gatland, Declan Kidney or Andy Robinson.

“It was a privilege to be involved . It’s an incredible experience and a unique experience as well, and I was there to keep my head down as much as anything, and just learn and try and take a little bit of a backward role, and learn from the experience, and I think I did that.

“I think anyone who was asked if they were interested in doing that would jump at the opportunity, and obviously Declan is someone who has the credentials to be very capable of doing the job.”

As in the quarter-final, Gatland likes it that Wales are coming into this game as five-point underdogs and, again, somewhat under the radar. “We’re hearing there’s a lot of motivation for the Irish players in terms of payback for the quarter-final, wanting revenge for that defeat, and Ronan O’Gara talking about potentially how there’s a Grand Slam for Ireland. We’re quite comfortable with that at the moment,” he says, chuckling slightly.

“The Irish nation expect a performance and everyone is expecting Ireland to win, and win well, and that’s the talk at the moment. I’ve dealt with both nations in the same situation, and it’s not always the easiest position for people to be in.”

Lobbing the lightest of grenades perhaps. Or maybe tapping into that other Welsh extreme?