>> Cain: Gatland critics are wide of the mark
WARREN Gatland is a great coach, and assorted attempts to undermine his reputation this week were unworthy at best, and vindictive at worst.
While Gatland was on his way back to New Zealand to undertake a fortnight of quarantine his record as a head coach came under scrutiny, and saw him denigrated in some quarters following the 2021 Lions last-gasp penalty defeat in the Third Test of the Covid series against South Africa.
Attempts to saddle Gatland with the yoke of being a negative, defence-first-and-last coach appeared to be a reaction to premature suggestions from within the Lions administrative hierarchy that he was already front-runner for the Australia 2025 head coach role.
Whatever anyone thinks about his suitability to take on the job again Down Under in four years’ time, the idea of deliberately using the unsatisfactory tactical template of the recent tour as a means of smearing his record, while ignoring his versatility and the length and breadth of his achievements, beggars belief.
It would be wrong to suggest that Gatland be given sacred cow status, and a misrepresentation to say that, like every coach and player, his career has been error-free. However, there is no more valid statement in Rugby Union than the one which says if you want to know how good a coach is, just look at his record.
Even allowing for the narrowest of defeats by South Africa in a fractious, often acrimonious series in which the Lions were even less prepared than the Springboks – who at least did not have to build a team from scratch – attempts to undermine Gatland’s coaching credentials are an absurdity.
A brief summary tells anyone with an objective perspective all they need to know. It includes one winning Lions tour (Australia 2013), one drawn Lions tour (New Zealand 2017), and one losing Lions tour (South Africa 2021). It also includes three Wales Six Nations Grand Slams (2008, 2012, 2018), a fourth title in 2013 (with Rob Howley as caretaker), and two Wales World Cup semi-finals (2011, 2019).
In club rugby he hit the heights by taking Wasps to a European Cup title (2004), as well as winning three English Premiership titles (2003, 2004, 2005), and the European Challenge Cup (2003).
In the earlier part of his career
Gatland took Ireland from eight in the World Rankings to six, including a first win over France in Paris for 28 years when, in 2000, his selecion of a young Brian O’Driscoll paid off when the tyro scored a brilliant hattrick. He also helped Connacht, hitherto barely on the rugby map, to a European Challenge Cup quarterfinal in 1998.
There is nothing negative about this catalogue, and any suggestion that Gatland has put a conservative tactical straitjacket on the teams he has coached is claptrap. In terms of strategy, and the deployment of players, Gatland has usually cut his coat according to the cloth he had at his disposal. For instance, each of his Lions teams played in a different way, and the up-the-middle style of his Wales sides was very different to the blitz-defence and marauding counter-attacking style of Wasps.
In fact, the only campaign in which his Lions team became bogged down in a tactical mire was when it got stuck in trying to out-do South Africa in its limited kickchase strategy, most notably in the Second Test. By contrast, the Third Test saw the Lions on the hunt thanks to the promptings of Finn Russell, but the lack of teamwork and established combinations saw them squander their chances to go for the kill.
What all the retrospective judgement has mainly failed to take into account is that the extraordinary conditions of the tour, with no worthwhile provincial opposition, left Gatland in an extremely difficult place in terms of selection.
This was exacerbated when potentially key players like Russell and Wyn Jones were ruled out of the first two Tests by injuries. It was not helped when some of his Test Lions from New Zealand – with Taulupe Faletau, Owen Farrell, Mako Vunipola, Jamie George, Conor Murray, Tadhg Furlong, Liam Williams, Anthony Watson, and Elliot Daly among them – found it difficult to burst out of the confines of bubble living to have the same impact they did against the All Blacks. None of this means that the narrative on Gatland’s coaching career has to be twisted out of shape in order to justify the view that his tenure as Lions coach may have run its course.
Having done four Lions tours over a 12-year span – he was assistant coach in 2009 in South Africa before matching Ian McGeechan for Lions coaching longevity by taking charge of three consecutive series after that – it is probably time to pass on the baton to a new generation of British and Irish coaches.
Gatland’s most obvious successor at the moment is Scotland’s Gregor Townsend, although as assistant coach (attack) on the South Africa tour the Lions backs struggled to match the impact and finishing power of their Springbok counterparts.
A possible dark horse rival to Townsend is his 2021 Lions forwards counterpart Robin McBryde, with the north Walian returning to his post as assistant coach at Leinster.
There are also four further experienced former Gatland assistant
Lions coaches who could come into the picture in Ireland coach Andy Farrell, France defence coach Shaun Edwards, Leicester coach Steve Borthwick, and Rob Howley, now Canada assistant coach.
Another potential hurdle for the Lions is how many other credible candidates there will be given the recent to reluctance on the part of some successful club coaches – in England in particular – to commit to international rugby.
The most decorated of these are Mark McCall at Saracens and Rob
“Attempts to undermine Gatland’s coaching credentials are absurd”
“Gatland’s most obvious successor is Scotland’s Gregor Townsend”
Baxter at Exeter, and although Ronan O’Gara’s reputation is growing, the former Ireland and Lions fly-half has yet to win any of the big prizes with La Rochelle. The same is true of another promising young English coach, Alex Sanderson at Sale Sharks.
Another factor to be taken into account, and one that makes the comments by Lions chief executive Ben Calveley and chairman, Jason Leonard, about Gatland being “in consideration” for 2025 premature, is whether he remains in New Zealand.
It would be extremely difficult for the Lions committee to justify appointing an overseas-based coach for the tour of Australia over a candidate who is embedded in the game in the Four Home Unions. At the moment Gatland is contracted to the Waikato-based Chiefs franchise, and it remains to be seen how his recent Lions involvement impacts on his chances of becoming All Blacks coach.
Gatland will be 61 when the Australia tour comes round in 2025, and four years can be a very long time in Rugby Union. The Lions board is under no duress to make a decision on who it appoints as its next head coach for two years. But, what should be apparent to those making the decision is that it would be profligate of any organisation to ignore the experience of those who have served it with great distinction.
Gatland fits that description perfectly. He has been a big part of the Lions brains trust in the professional era, and if he is not retained as head coach, the wisest move would be to ask him to bring all that expertise to bear as tour manager.