Lions coach Gatland ready for 'one hell of a challenge'

RUGBY:HE MAY be a Kiwi, but as first-time appointments to the role of Lions head coach go, it's doubtful whether anyone has been more qualified than Warren Gatland. Indeed, Gatland once rebuffed the New Zealand RU for claiming him to be a product of their coaching system, for in truth as a coach he is far more a product of the British and Irish system.

Short of coaching Scotland, he pretty much ticks every box. All told this is 20th season as a coach in the Northern Hemisphere, during which time he has coached in Ireland, England and Wales, as well as New Zealand for three years.

The odyssey that led to him being eventually coronated in London yesterday began when he stayed on after the New Zealand tour of 1989 to coach Galwegians for four years.

In due course he would play a significant part in the rejuvenation of Irish rugby, leaving Galwegians, Connacht and Ireland in better stead than when he joined them, before guiding Wasps to three Premierships, a Heineken Cup and a Challenge Cup, Waikato to their first Air New Zealand Cup since his own playing days during a brief interregnum back home, and latterly Wales to Grand Slams in 2008 and 2012 as well as the World Cup semi-finals last season.

“I’ve been coaching in the Northern Hemisphere off and on, and mostly on, for 20 years out of 23,” said Gatland yesterday. “I cut my cloth as a coach in the Northern Hemisphere and luckily enough I feel can now marry the two.

“As a player I played in New Zealand and was coached by new Zealanders and All Blacks’ coaches, but as a I coach I see myself as very much the product of the Northern Hemisphere and lived and coached in three different countries and three different cultures.”

“Importantly,” as Lions’ tour manager Andy Irvine noted yesterday, Gatland was also forwards coach to Ian McGeechan on the Lions tour of 2009 in South Africa.

Gatland was “really honoured and really excited” about what he called the huge challenge ahead.

“But then I suppose all Lions tours are huge challenges, and then there are the expectations for performances and results as well.”

The Lions haven’t won a series since South Africa in 1997 and the last Kiwi to coach them, Graham Henry, who was also in charge of Wales at the time, not only lost the series 2-1 but, within a year, lost his job with Wales too.

Indeed, similar fates befell Ian McGeechan (twice) and Clive Woodward since, prompting Gatland to quip: “It’s the poisoned chalice for a coach.”

Gatland, and his management team, must assemble the best of four nations at the end of a long season and only a week after the finals of the Rabo Pro 12 and Aviva Premiership final before the opening tour game against the Barbarians in Hong Kong en route to nine matches in Australia culminating in three Tests.

“That’s the big challenge; picking players from four nations with very limited preparation time, you get on the plane and then there’s the expectation of going against one of the best teams in the world and winning the series.”

Having picked the squad soon after the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, they will try to bring the squad together on one or two Monday/recovery days toward the end of the season for logistical and organisational days, “but you’re up against coaches who are preparing for semi-finals and finals, and don’t want to be disrupted as well, so it makes it difficult and we’ll just have to play it by ear.”

Gatland also told The Irish Times yesterday: “One of the things we learned from the 2009 tour was the importance of continuity, that there’s no need to try and reinvent the wheel for the Lions.”

This would suggest about four coaches in addition to himself, namely a forwards’ coach, a scrum coach, a defence coach and a backs/attack coach, some of whom were in South Africa three years ago, overseeing a squad of around the mid- to late-30s in total numbers.

There will be intense speculation as to the make-up of his backroom team.

With Graham Rowntree and Shaun Edwards strongly favoured to resume as forwards and defence coach from four years ago, speculation will especially surround the identity of Gatland’s attacking/backs’ coach.

Joe Schmidt, his fellow Kiwi, would be the outstanding candidate given the brand of attacking rugby played by Leinster backs and the team in general, although as Gatland’s assistant and the Lions’ backs coach of three years ago, Rob Howley, would be a fairly seamless appointment.

He also has experience of coaching Wales in Australia to a narrow three-Test series defeat while Gatland was injured following his fall from a ladder at his family home in New Zealand.

Gatland said he would begin making phone calls to prospective assistants and their unions/clubs “within the next couple of weeks and submit names to John Feehan, chief executive of the Lions, with regard to their release”.

Ideally he would like to announce the backroom team before the November internationals, when he will step aside from Wales’ games against Samoa and Argentina then resume as head coach for the games against Australia and New Zealand, before handing over to Howley again for the Six Nations championship.

“Not doing the Six Nations makes it a lot easier.

“ I think it’s important that you show impartiality and get around all the other countries and see them play, and spend more time with them. I think it would put more pressure on you if you were coaching one country and then all of a sudden turnaround a pick a Lions squad. That would put you under a huge amount of pressure.”

The fourth match of the tour, against a Combined Country XV which was originally scheduled to be played at Hunter Stadium, Newcastle on Wednesday June 12th, has been brought forward by 24 hours.