Haskell lifts lid on Gatland’s success

ENGLAND star James Haskell has discussed what has made Warren Gatland such a successful head coach.

The back-rower, now a teammate of Dan Biggar’s at Northampton, played under Gatland as a youngster at Wasps and then with the British and Irish Lions in 2017.

Haskell, who has 77 caps for England, is currently not involved in Eddie Jones current squad so he won’t be going up against Gatland in Cardiff next Saturday.

But he did provide an unique insight into what it’s like to work under him on JOE’s House of Rugby podcast.

“The thing that makes Gatland such a good coach and earned him such a lot of success, because his record speaks for itself, is that he understands how to put teams together in a short space of time,” he said.

“He wants to work you really hard, but give you freedom as well, so he has that nice balance.

“But he wants you to buy into everything, he wants people to front up, have that real physical edge.”

The 33-year-old Haskell revealed Gatland loved it as long as the players never went against his ideals.

“He wants that from his players. If you toe the line like that, he’s great,” added the back-rower.

“But if you go against it... I remember a bloke didn’t want to sign for Wasps and his contract wasn’t even up.

“He (Gatland) stood up in front of everybody and said ‘this guy doesn’t want to sign, he doesn’t want to be here’ and he just sent the bloke home.

“He expects unequivocal buyin and then you have Shaun (Edwards) with the emotion so Gats doesn’t need to.

“On the Lions, he obviously controlled it but he had Andy Farrell there as the emotional speaker.

“He’s great at putting a team around him that facilitate his view.”