No more Lions tours for me, says Gatland
WARREN Gatland has ruled himself out of contention to coach the British and Irish Lions in 2021.
And Gatland also revealed that he “hated the press and negativity” in New Zealand surrounding the Lions’ 10-match tour, which was highlighted by a drawn Test series against the world champion All Blacks earlier this year.
After serving as Lions head coach in Australia four years ago, winning the Test series 2-1, then holding New Zealand across three memorable games, New Zealander Gatland would be viewed in most quarters as a clear favourite to lead the 2021 South Africa tour.
But Wales boss Gatland said: “I’m done. I hated the tour. I did. I just hated the press and the negativity in New Zealand.
“When I look back on it now, there were a lot of things that were satisfying and what an achievement it was, but it was tough work. It was hard.”
Asked about potentially throwing his hat into the ring for South Africa, Gatland added: “I wouldn’t subject myself to that.
“What I’ve learned from my Lions’ experiences is how difficult it is to put some continuity together in terms of people and staff, and the lack of preparation time.
“Let someone else do it. Let someone else reinvent the wheel.
“I think when you reflect back on it, it was some achievement. When you think of the quality of the opposition,” he added.
“Previous tours, you could go on a Lions tour and have a midweek game where you know you can back off a little bit and make some changes and the guys can still comfortably win the game. And that allows you to recover a little bit, but the quality on this tour was relentless.”
But Gatland admitted he was ‘hurt’ by the criticism of Ireland’s Sean O’Brien, who claimed in a podcast interview last month that the squad had been over-trained during Test match preparations and could have won the series 3-0.
He said: “I was disappointed. I have to be honest – It took a bit of the gloss off the Lions tour.
“I went,’ Phew!’ If he wanted to say something, then there is a different forum rather than being critical. No-one has ever in the history of the game taken on a tour of that magnitude or difficulty.
“Did we learn as coaches from that experience? Would we have done some things differently? Of course we would. That’s part of coaching, part of the experience. If he was going to make some comments, then he could have done so in a different way.
“You watch how hard the coaches and the back-room staff worked and then to have someone come out and make a comment like that ... it really, really did hurt.”
The head coach revealed he subsequently rang O’Brien to express his disappointment, adding that the player texted him saying he had been taken out of context. “I texted to say he could call me at any time, but I’ve not heard back from him,” Gatland added.
“The disappointing thing, I thought Sean’s comments were disrespectful to New Zealand, saying that we should have comfortably won the series 3-0. I don’t know what planet he is on, but I was on a different tour to him if he thought we should have won comfortably.”