The departure of Warren Gatland left Welsh fans emotionally torn. On the one hand, they acknowledge he is their greatest ever coach; someone who masterminded three Grand Slams, four Six Nations championships, two World Cup semi-finals, a Lions-winning series packed with Welsh stars and led Wales to No 1 in the world rankings. Yet contrastingly, he was also the man who lost the Midas touch. Lost his aura of invincibility and if we are to believe rumours, lost the dressing room on a ruinous 14-game losing run where he undoubtedly tainted his legacy. His first album of hits reached Nirvana Nevermind levels, but his follow up tanked painfully into the bargain bin of second-album flops.
The emotions are mixed because it is the end of an era. Indeed, Gatland presided over 151 Tests in 17 years, only seven Tests shy of Alun Wyn Jones’ world record knock for Wales on the field. Gatland’s fingerprints were on every Welsh performance since February 2008, when then CEO Roger Lewis had famously flown him, by helicopter, along a stretch of South Wales coast, from Cardiff to Llanelli, where the Hamilton native was taken aback by the amount of patchwork fields littered with rugby posts in the sport’s heartland.
Even when Gatland departed in late 2019, for a three-year sojourn in which he failed to ignite the Chiefs and lost a bitterly fought Lions series against South Africa in 2021, his far-reaching legacy could still be felt, breathing down the neck of the incumbent Wayne Pivac. It would stretch credulity to imagine Gatland returned to Wales without an idea of the mounting problems, given he had forged such strong links over 12 years and still had former backroom staff in situ working for the WRU.
What followed was calamitous. Six wins in 26 Tests, with one defining victory, that 40-6 drubbing of Australia in Lyon, over another coach who was trying to reignite past glories at his former employer, Eddie Jones. If Gatland, who could be taciturn, was asked to comment on another coach who had failed to win 14 consecutive Tests, you’d wager he’d accede the struggling coach would have little option but to resign.
The manner of the limp defeat against Italy damned Gatland. It showed how his motivational powers had waned. How his tactical acumen had disintegrated. Yes, Welsh fans saw him as part of their glorious past, but also as a coach who couldn’t inspire in the present or the future. In blunt terms, he was past it. A busted flush.
When he recoils on a sun lounger back in Hamilton with a glass of red, he may indulge in a spot of self-reflection. Should he have tried harder to encourage George North and Tomas Francis to postpone their retirements? Was it fair to call out Rhys Carre for his lack of conditioning and ostracise him when Wales struggle to cross the gainline, and was it a mistake to play Ben Thomas at 10 when he plays all his club rugby at inside centre? Sure, the system around him is in a parlous state but accountability has to be placed at his door. He is not beyond scrutiny.
What Sherratt offered was not the expectation of an unlikely Triple Crown, but more realistically hope, and ambition on the pitch. Two characteristics notably absent from Welsh fans’ lexicon in the last 12 months.
It was against this emotionally charged backdrop the hastily arranged press conference took place in an almost surreal air. Matt Sherratt wandered in bedecked in Cardiff blue, flanked by a solemn looking acting performance director Huw Bevan, and CEO Abi Tierney, who’d had a challenging, low-key first 14 months in role. The praise for Gatland – who was not present – was all-encompassing. Platitudes were delivered, with Tierney divulging it was the New Zealander who made the first move and accepted he was no longer the man for the role before a swiftly thrashed out ‘mutually agreed parting’ could be announced.
She said what Sherratt offered was not the expectation of an unlikely triple crown, but more realistically hope, and ambition on the pitch. Two characteristics notably absent from Welsh fans’ lexicon in the past 12 months.
Sherratt said he was under no illusions just how ‘bumpy’ professional rugby was and with limited training sessions he wouldn’t be able to perform miracles from a technical and tactical viewpoint, but would instead work on ‘mindset’ and ‘positivity’ in a quest to bring excitement back to a squad that looked on the verge of tears leaving the Stadio Olimpico.
While distancing himself from taking on the job full-time, there is a groundswell of goodwill towards the affable Sherratt, which is something to cling on to. Tierney acknowledged he would be given licence select his own team and backroom staff for his three-Test cameo, so whether the likes of Gareth Anscombe could bolster Wales’ fly-half stocks and Max Llewellyn could bring his heft to a backline that struggles to puncture Test defences will soon be evident.
The need, nay desperation for a director of rugby is writ large. Whether that appointment can dovetail with the appointment of the new head coach is something Tierney said she could not promise, but was adamant renumeration wouldn’t be a hurdle to luring a coach of the highest calibre to a fix-up job even the A-Team would be proud of. The agents of Simon Easterby, Franco Smith and Michael Cheika may well be taking calls in the coming months, as Wales look to have a new coach in place before the July tour to Japan.
Wales had used its geography as a strength in the good times. Squads could easily assemble and a ‘Team Wales’ mentality was forged but errors in disbanding the national academy and starving the regions of money to run them, while whittling down squad sizes and salary caps saw relations verge from mild distrust to outright toxicity. Gatland, for all his success, will always be linked to an era when the weighting of resources was unfairly balanced towards his paymasters, and he cannot claim to be unaware of the decisions being taken. Tierney admitted deep-rooted errors had been made and re-emphasised the need for ‘systemic change’.
What is the point of the 25-cap rule, when only two players are captured by it? Joe Hawkins, who is said to be returning to the Scarlets is one, and Carre, lampooned on 22 caps, is the other. It is meaningless.
To many, Gatland was part of the problem. He was the WRU. When the players finally lost patience and threatened to strike before the 2023 Six Nations clash with England, Ken Owens said Wales had become the ‘laughing stock of world rugby’. Gatland used a national newspaper column to answer his naysayers and claim to have been hurt by criticism. That, in truth, was ill-judged and should not have been played out in public. His musings would have done little to ingratiate him to players whose friends and colleagues are being deprived of their livelihoods. For all his strengths, he could be thin-skinned, and even this year, after another review, he questioned the players’ unflattering appraisal because he said they didn’t ‘understand a winning culture’. It was a series of PR missteps he could ride happily when winning, but not when Wales were on their worst losing run in their 144-year history.
While Sherratt endeavours to lift a nation in dire straits, there remain numerous gaps to shore up in the Welsh system. What is the point of the 25-cap rule, when only two players are captured by it? Joe Hawkins, who is said to be returning to the Scarlets, is one, and Carre, marooned on 22 caps, is the other. It is meaningless. It was a ruling introduced to stop players heading over the Bridge to England and beyond, but with the drastic cutting of the squad budgets, players not offered contracts had to leave to find work anyway.
After the debacle of the Cardiff-born and bred Immanuel Feyi-Waboso slipping away and into the gleeful hands of Steve Borthwick, the torrent of talent being offered scholarships at prestigious English public schools continues unabated. From there, the elite are fed into the club academy systems and capped at England U20 level, no doubt being sweet talked by agents to throw their hand in with a pathway that promises far more riches and profile than the cash-strapped game in Wales.
Kane James, who is from West Wales, was man of the-match against Ireland for England U20s, and punching holes in the defence was Kepu Tuipulotu, another youngster whose family lives in Wales, and sister plays for Wales. The duo have opted to wear the Red Rose and they will not be the last. There are rafts of Welsh players showcasing their talents in the Premiership U18 academy league and Wales, with its small playing base, cannot afford to gift wrap gifted teenagers to a much bigger and better resourced nation.
If and when Wales can turn themselves around, they can avoid the indignity of wags using them as a reason for introducing relegation to the Six Nations when Scotland and Italy have, at the last time of looking, won neither a championship nor Grand Slam in 25 years of trying.
For over a decade, Gatland gave Welsh fans the success they were starved of and blessed them with cherished memories. Wales were revered and respected, not ridiculed. For that, they will be forever grateful but it was time to move on.
