All wrong for the All Blacks
When you look at the way Gatland has adapted his coaching style to suit the northern hemisphere, there is nothing in the Welsh performances which you can remotely relate to any All Black displays. The question is: If the Hamilton-born mentor were to be appointed by the men in suits at NZR, would he get the All Blacks to keep playing the amazing brand of rugby they play or would Scott Robertson, who only knows one way – the ‘Crusaders way’– not be a better fit for the men in black?
I believe the suits would be taking a risk if they were to appoint Gatland. It’s not that he is a bad coach but you must understand he had to adapt to win with Wales and has got used to employing a different style. Wales are limited offensively and don’t possess an amazing attack, which is why Gatland would have told his team, ‘‘Listen boys, we have got a good set-piece, we can defend well and if we win the aerial battle we are going to be tough to beat.’’
In contrast, the All Blacks boast the best attack in the game today and having Gatland coach them could be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Gatland is a threetime grand slam champion, won a Lions series in Australia, drew a series in New Zealand and guided Wales to a World Cup semifinal.
He managed to win the big games but, after 12 years and 100 tests at the helm of Wales, his win ratio is only 51 per cent. The point is not to put Gatland down – he’s a quality coach – but if you stick with people and keep them for a long period of time, in all likelihood you will be successful.
Gatland boasts a brilliant management team around him. However, he’s not going to be able to take that management team with him to New Zealand, and a head coach is only as good as his support staff.
Plenty of credit needs to go to Shaun Edwards, who is a brilliant defence coach. He has a very well-balanced defensive strategy.
However, we have now got to a stage where sound defences are a given and the reason the aerial battle is going to be so important is because that is one way of getting in behind amazing defences.
Everybody talked about counter-attack being broken field, but now people have organised the counter-attack as well on kick returns and in broken field. However, it’s not broken field anymore. Turnovers and the regathering of high balls are set to be the two areas which will be most difficult to defend and what all the good teams are going to be working on.
* South African Brendan Venter is a 1995 World Cup winner and a former assistant coach of the Springboks.