O’halloran turns down Lions tour role but Gatland still looking north TARTAN SPECIALIST
Coach decides to focus on new job at Warriors, with Gray now likely to be considered for backroom team
Warren Gatland has said he is still keen to have Scottish representation on his British and Irish Lions coaching staff after Jason O’halloran followed Gregor Townsend in turning down a role on next summer’s tour to New Zealand.
Scotland attack coach O’halloran is reported to have held talks with fellow Kiwi Gatland, but has opted to focus instead on his new role at Glasgow Warriors.
Townsend, who becomes Scotland coach at the end of the season, had already knocked back the chance to join the Lions to lead the national team on their summer tour to Fiji and Australia.
Gatland named Steve Borthwick, Rob Howley and Andy Farrell as his primary assistants last month but still has back-up roles to fill and was keen for O’halloran to be assistant attack coach to Howley.
One man who could be considered is breakdown specialist Richie Gray, pictured right, who has been working with Scotland as a contact consultant. When Gatland was named Lions coach in Edinburgh earlier in the year he was asked about the possibility of the former Gala captain, who previously worked as part of the Springboks coaching staff, being involved.
“I heard that he was going to potentially put his name forward,” Gatland said then. “I haven’t spoken to him about it.
“I know he did quite a bit of work with South Africa and have spoken to him on a number of occasions when we had dinner as a coaching group before Wales-south Africa games.”
On Tuesday, Gatland told BBC Wales that he felt not having any representation from north of the Border on his staff could have a negative impact on the Scottish representation in the squad.
“The ideal scenario from my point of view would be having someone from Scotland to give some representation, to push the Scottish cause, to push some of their players,” he said.
“That’s important. Someone from within the Scottish system will know their players a lot better than we do. They’ll know the characters and the individuals and potentially push them on a 50/50 decision.
“My ideal scenario would be to have someone from Scotland. If that happens, that would be great.”
O’halloran, who was brought in as Scotland attack coach by Vern Cotter following the 2015 World Cup, is believed to have been tempted by a return to his homeland with the Lions but has decided that his priority has to be the new job at Glasgow.
With incoming Warriors coach Dave Rennie potentially not arriving until August depending on how far his current club Waikato Chiefs progress in Super Rugby, it is understood that O’halloran and forwards coach Jonathan Humphreys, who is also moving from the Scotland set-up to Glasgow, will take lead roles in pre-season at Scotstoun. Gatland will look to finalise his back-room staff next month and added: “I’ve got one or two people in mind. Hopefully, that can get sorted out early in the New Year. “I’d spoken to a couple of people originally and they’d made themselves unavailable, which was disappointing but I understand and respect the decisions they’ve made and the focus that they wanted to have.”
“The ideal scenario from my point of view would be having someone from Scotland to push the Scottish cause, to push some of their players”
WARREN GATLAND