Coaching team have wasted time on transition, says Gwyn
GWYN Jones is calling on the Welsh Rugby Union to bring in a consultant coach to work alongside Warren Gatland in a bold bid to catch up with the other leading nations in evolving their current game-plan.
Wales flattered to deceive in the four-Test autumn internationals, losing to Australia and New Zealand while eking out narrow wins over South Africa and Georgia.
And with a tough Six Nations looming on the horizon including trips to Twickenham and Dublin, former Wales skipper Jones believes Lions supremo Gatland needs to supplement his current coaching team with outside help if the country are to evolve on the international stage.
The Western Mail columnist told the BBC Scrum V programme: “This Welsh coaching team have been together for 10 years coaching one very specific way of playing and I think they’re learning on the job.
“I think they would benefit if they could invite someone in who has been through this process and transitioned a side to play a more expansive open style.
“What are the risks, how do you overcome the problems, what are the challenges when people come up against you and what skills do you need to work on?
“This coaching team is learning this on the job and I don’t think we’ve got the time to do it.”
Gatland’s coaching mentor, Ian McGeechan, was among those at the weekend suggesting Wales are lagging behind the other home nations, who all had far more encouraging autumn international results.
And Jones believes the year Gatland spent away with the Lions last season could well be 12 months lost in the Welsh rugby evolution.
“I think we’ve wasted a year I don’t know whether perhaps losing the head coach to the Lions was a sacrificial year for the purpose of Wales. This transition should have happened a year earlier. If he (Gatland) was concentrating on that maybe it would have happened.
“We’re starting on a journey other people have been on. You’ve got to trust in your style that no matter who you play against. You take Stuart Hogg out of Scotland and that system still puts 50 points on Australia.
“They only got there because Gregor Townsend coached Glasgow, he’s coached those players. they know what to do and they are entrenched in the way of playing.
“They are all tuned in and it is second nature to them. It’s having time with the players and a belief in the system you’ve got. You know when you play England you can’t kick it to them because you’ll never get it back, kick it to the All Blacks back three and it’ll be absolute chaos.”
And in a warning to Wales ahead of the Six Nations, Jones added: “Ireland, England and Scotland are really good sides now and will provide harder opposition than playing Australia and South Africa at home in the autumn.
“I think the challenge we face in the Six Nations will be even harder than the month we’ve just had.”