Gatland’s desperate to KO his great rival
CARDIFF is becoming used to hosting heavyweight battles. A month after Anthony Joshua and Carlos Takam stepped into the ring under the Principality Stadium roof the iconic arena sees another mammoth contest.
Warren Gatland and Steve Hansen will not trade blows themselves this evening when Wales face the All Blacks, but after sharing the pot in this summer’s epic Lions series, many view this as the decider. Familiarity may breed contempt but ahead of the fourth Test between the two coaches in five months there has been less verbal sparring this week than in New Zealand – the barbs from that series have been replaced by a sense of mutual admiration.
What makes the perceived rivalry between these fiercely competitive Kiwi prizefighters more intriguing is their similarity.
‘One’s a schoolteacher and one’s a cop. Kiwi blokes are pretty damn similar — we like rugby, racing and beer!’ Ian Jones, the former All Black lock who played with and was coached by Gatland, told Sportsmail.
‘They instil a team with a huge amount of confidence and belief — that comes from their Kiwi backgrounds,’ said Tom Shanklin – who played under both for Wales.
‘They are strict figureheads and both very blunt — there is no messing around, or mincing words.’
Hansen endured a horrible run when he led Wales, slumping to 10 consecutive defeats between 2002 and 2003, something Gatland referenced a month ago when he said he ‘hated’ the Lions tour, saying that his rival probably did not enjoy that run either. But speak to the players of that era, and they did.
‘Steve is an unbelievable rugby coach,’ Dwayne Peel, who made his first Test start under Hansen, told Sportsmail.
‘He was a hard disciplinarian but, off the pitch he drove the culture, the way he thought we should behave every day. I can’t speak highly enough of the guy.’
Shanklin revealed the standards Hansen demanded as coach.
‘A big thing for him was that he wanted everybody to stay in the hotel, no matter what. If you did have a reason to go home he wanted to know about it – he wanted the squad to stay tight, bond off the field.
‘Dafydd James went out in his car, came back and Steve asked where he had been.
‘Dafydd said he had just been to his car to collect something, but Steve went over to it, felt the bonnet was warm and dropped him! It certainly stopped people leaving the Vale hotel!’
Gatland’s motivation will not only be to get one over Hansen, but also to break the black curse New Zealand have over Wales.
The 29-match winless run is so long that only one Welshman survives from their last victory over the All Blacks 64 years ago, Courtenay Meredith, the 91-year-old former Neath prop and 1955 Lion.
Another who played in that 13-8 Welsh victory was one George Nelson Dalzell — grandfather of today’s All Black captain, Sam Whitelock and No8 Luke.
His story is astonishing. Dalzell had so much shrapnel in his leg following the Second World War that doctors wanted to amputate it — the All Black refused and played the rest of his career with wood taped to his limb, covering the wound.
For many Welshmen, Sam Whitelock’s presence and link to 1953 is an omen — but then again that hex did not work in 2010, in 2012, 2014 or twice in 2016, when the second row played and beat Wales.
At 5.15pm when the bell rings on another bout between Gatland and Hansen, Wales will not just be going toe-to-toe with the world champions, but history as well.