Pragmatist building a platform for success

Where were you last Tuesday afternoon on that fateful day? Warren Gatland had driven to Dublin from Galway a few hours ahead of Leinster's game with Pontypridd to accommodate a couple of interviewers in the Berkeley Court hotel. Talk of rugby seemed more pointless than ever.

The first of these interviews had been delayed due to the horrific pictures emerging from New York on a TV screen in the corner of the room. Moving away from them and turning one's attention to the oncoming season, no less than the match later that night, felt utterly irrelevant.

But talk we did. The full scale of the horror had yet to manifest itself. Life goes on and the games go on.

Next Saturday another international season kicks off prematurely, the leftovers of last season's championship which the foot-and-mouth epidemic curtailed.

Add three autumnal matches at home, a full Six Nations in the new year along with a two-Test tour to New Zealand, and so Ireland will have an unparalleled 11 matches this season and 13 matches by next summer. Included will be three meetings with the All Blacks, whom Ireland have never beaten, and two clashes with England.

Best then, perhaps, to get the wins in early. But although Ireland finally ended their losing sequence against the Scots last season, Murrayfield is a bugbear; Ireland's last win there came in 1985.

All in all, the impression remains that last season's enforced interruption didn't do Ireland any favours, robbing them of momentum. As frustrating for Gatland will have been the lack of time spent with the squad before they assemble tomorrow evening.

"A day and a half, yeah," he says in quick agreement. With Ireland in particular this seems bizarre, given it's a mostly home-based squad who are centrally contracted.

Stumbling blocks keep emerging though, and this past week's three-game programme in the inaugural Celtic League is a case in point. At least when it comes to the autumn internationals against Samoa, the All Blacks and Canada, Ireland will effectively go into camp for three weeks. Cometh the 2002 Six Nations though, and the provinces will be up to their necks in European fare again.

That's the down side. On the up, things have possibly never been better during his three-and-a-half tenure. The loss of Rob Henderson has been offset by the return from injury of the Easterbys, Simon and Guy, as well as Kieron Dawson and Jeremy Davidson.

"It's probably a stronger squad than we've ever had to select from," Gatland says, admitting that the hardest decisions were leaving out players such as Mick Galwey. In this he and his fellow selectors had one eye on the 2003 World Cup.

There's a bit of an anomaly here, for while Gatland is planning towards 2003, his current contract with the IRFU expires in November. By contrast, the Italian federation have recently extended Brad Johnstone's contract through to the next World Cup, leaving Gatland as the only Six Nations coach who isn't contracted for the event.

The players are solidly behind him and are mostly not even aware there's an issue here, after a run of three defeats in Ireland's last dozen matches. It's ironic when set against the six-year contract of his predecessor Brian Ashton, who scarcely saw out a year. But perhaps therein lies the rub.

However agitated he may be by the lack of long-term security, he shifts a little uneasily when the subject is brought up. "Ideally, that's my ultimate goal, to take this team on to the World Cup. But that's not my decision, that's the union's decision and I appreciate how supportive the union were after the disappointment of the World Cup and Twickenham," says Gatland, in reference to the 50-19 defeat to England.

By rights therefore, Gatland could easily have retained Galwey and looked no further than next November. "I hadn't thought of it like that," he says. "If I was being completely selfish I suppose I could say stuff the long-term development of the team and let's get results now. Hand on my heart though, I'd like to think I was pretty honest in this job and made decisions that were in the best interests of Irish rugby."

It's an awkward balancing act. Two years before the last World Cup the All Blacks of Seβn Fitzpatrick, Zinzan Brooke and Frank Bunce were "The Invincibles". They swept through the Tri-Nations for the second year in a row, their only blemish being an end-of-year draw in Twickenham. But then they had to rebuild and by the time of the World Cup, talented though they were, they lacked Australian-like experience and lost their nerve in that memorable semi-final against France.

Gatland nods and goes a step further. "I think New Zealand have got two World Cups wrong by having a team that's performing outstanding two years out from the World Cup. At both times they were the best in the world and would have been teams you'd love to have taken into a World Cup.

"I've been saying for a long time that given our small playing base we should really be looking to go from World Cup to World Cup. We want the most experienced team we can get in World Cup year with players who have played a lot of Test matches and who have experience in age. There is definitely one eye on that."

In the short-term too, a degree of success will be expected of Gatland and this Ireland side, and the coach admits he's never had so much quality to work with. Recently, he was trawling through some old files when he blew the dust off the make-up of the squad for his first overseas tour to South Africa three summers ago. How much has changed.

Only nine of the 36 players used in South Africa are in the 22 for next week's trip to Edinburgh. Many, 16 all told, are still on the fringes or in the provincial set-ups. Seven have since retired, Conor McGuinness, Mark McCall, Allen Clarke, Ciaran Clarke, Richard Wallace, Gabriel Fulcher and David Corkery, while Dion O'Cuinneagain's future is unclear. As is the way of developmental tourists - John Hayes, Bernard Jackman, Derek Hegarty and Des Clohessy - their paths have differed since. "What I was struck with was how much players who were on that tour have improved, and how much we've improved since then."

The problem, of course, is that while Irish rugby continues to make strides forward, others are making even further progress. Indeed after his experiences as Lions manager Donal Lenihan for one believes that England could run further away, in terms of their coaching back-up, individualised development of players physically and technically. What with England's full-time defensive and kicking and video coaches and the like, Gatty and Eddie (O'Sullivan) appear to be ploughing comparatively lonely furrows, but the Irish coach is inclined to go "Whooaaa".

"It's something I've addressed recently but I've also been conscious not to jump into it because everybody else was doing it. There's the other side of it, that people think the English are maybe too top heavy and maybe the Lions were too top heavy as well. For me it's the balance between the management and the coaching structure and expertise, and what we can give the players.

"We can all keep improving. Something I think we've been doing really well in the last 12-18 months has been our analysis work on opposition and self-analysis. We'll look to continue developing that. We're looking at bringing in someone to do defensive work but again it's about finding the right personnel. It's about doing the right thing at the right time, not just because somebody else is doing it."

Good and all as the structures are, they could work better according to the Irish coach, who has irked IRFU officials, and the Munster management especially, by suggesting a greater movement and spread of top players amongst the provinces. It's a typically pragmatic, New Zealand type viewpoint.

"I personally believe, and I want to stress that, that leading young players would develop quicker by playing rather than by sitting on the bench or being part of a squad."

Alongside this is the development of a national team which is in keeping with his own philosophy. "I like free-flowing rugby. I like to see crowds enjoying the game, I like to go and watch games myself where the ball is being moved, and it's not just 10-man rugby. Where you see high levels of skill, you see players running with the ball and lots of movement. Of course it's about being pragmatic as well. It's about looking at the squad you have and playing to your strengths. We've been lucky enough to see players come on, some really exciting backs and other players who have developed as well, and I think the way we're playing is pretty enterprising."

Gatland says he and O'Sullivan are of a like-minded spirit, namely with width and depth. "He's a good coach. I've given him free rein with the backs. He's had a big input into the team and how things have gone."

At the outset especially though, as some outside strove to drive a wedge between them, they wouldn't necessarily have seemed like bosom buddies. "People say Eddie was appointed by the IRFU but that's not the case at all. I was the person who rang up Eddie, I approached him. I suppose the healthy thing about it is that we don't agree on everything, we don't agree on perhaps certain ways the defence should run. The last thing you want is a 'yes' man, you want healthy discussion."

Phase one of Ireland under Gatland saw the application of sound defence and solid set-pieces, thus immediately making them more difficult to beat, if also still finding it hard to win. The second phase was more technical and wide-ranging, improving ball presentation, kick-offs, executing more moves and continuity.

"The next phase after that is the tactical awareness, and we're in that phase at the moment. We're pretty good technically and fitness wise, we're reasonably good at set-pieces, now tactically we're trying to be much more aware, and playing with more freedom, and playing certain ways against certain teams."

So consumed has he been by Irish rugby, that one half forgets the three run-ins with New Zealand will be against his countrymen. Taking on the All Blacks after the haka as Irish coach will surely be special for him.

"I hadn't thought about it. There are some incredibly important games before them. After the team runs out I'll be singing the national anthem and there'll be no element of sympathy when we beat them," he says mischievously. "I couldn't think of anything better in the next 12 months than of the opportunity to play New Zealand three times and to be the first Irish team to beat them with myself as coach. I couldn't ask for much better than that."

Even more than the Lions perhaps, the All Blacks should have beaten the Australians though those clashes showed that "New Zealand have a few frailties at the moment". But Gatland and the Irish squad have drawn a line under the Lions tour. "We haven't talked about the Lions at all. That chapter is closed."

Gatland admits Ireland have delved heavily into the Munster well. Signs too that Leinster are finally coming of age will surely have a ripple effect. That said, he wants to see how Leinster respond to the big tests in the European Cup. "The top provinces should beat most of the Welsh clubs. I don't think they've been properly tested yet even though they've scored lots of points, played some good rugby and Matt's (Williams) done a very good job with them. And I'm sure Matt's thinking the same."

The short trip to Donnybrook was rewarded with another Leinster 50-pointer. There would be a minute's silence beforehand. "Is there any point in doing this?" one Leinster player later said he was thinking at the time. Afterwards in the Old Belvedere clubhouse the television pictures ensured rugby was quickly secondary again.

On coaching Ireland, Gatland says: "I've learnt a lot about myself. I continue to learn about players and Irish rugby, and the set-up and the ethos and the psychology. Being involved with the players on the training pitch is always something I love doing. That's what you do the job for, preparing a team for a match. There's a huge amount of pressure playing a match, because nowadays it's so much result orientated.

"We've had some really good results and played really well, seeing players develop and perform, and the crowd respond. There's a feel-good factor about Irish rugby now and that's what I've really enjoyed about the last 12 months."

And his opinion on the Ireland's Lions?: "For some players the response will be positive and for others it will be negative, and I haven't decided which is which yet. We'll see from the performances over the next few weeks."

On the Austin Healey affair?: "I'd be extremely disappointed if any of our players went down that line. One of the hardest things about coaching is selecting sides and leaving players out, but players with big egos are sometimes harder to deal with. With a bit of luck perhaps we can get Austin Healey to say a few things about us before the Ireland v England game, but I dunno, maybe it was a publicity stunt in advance of his book."

IRELAND'S FORTHCOMING ITINERARY:

September 22nd: Scotland v Ireland, Murrayfield.

October 13th: Wales v Ireland, Millennium Stadium.

October 20th: Ireland v England, Lansdowne Road.

November 10th: Ireland v Samoa, Lansdowne Road.

November 17th: Ireland v New Zealand, Lansdowne Road.

November 24th: Ireland v Canada, Lansdowne Road.

February 3rd: Ireland v Wales, Lansdowne Road.

February 16th: England v Ireland, Twickenham.

March 2nd: Ireland v Scotland, Lansdowne Road.

March 23rd: Ireland v Italy, Lansdowne Road.

April 4th: France v Ireland, Stade de France.

June 8th: New Zealand v Ireland, tbc.

June 15th: New Zealand v Ireland, tbc.

Ireland's record under Gatland. Played 33, Won 15, Drew 1, Lost 17.