Dan Biggar issues stark warning to Warren Gatland but saw ‘positive signs’ in Wallabies series

Dan Biggar has called for patience from Wales supporters as he believes that the return of several frontline players will help Warren Gatland’s outfit improve.

The retired fly-half hung up his boots at international level following the 2023 World Cup and was an interested observer during the team’s July trip to Australia.

Unfortunately, the tour ended in a 2-0 series defeat to the Wallabies but Biggar thinks there are “enough positive signs” for the side to build for the future.

Dismal run

However, there is no hiding from the fact that Wales have now lost nine straight international fixtures, with the tour coming after a winless Six Nations.

Biggar insists that the absence of Taulupe Faletau, Josh Adams, Jac Morgan, Tomos Williams, Will Rowlands and Adam Beard has hit them hard, though.

“Wales are clearly in a transition period, with the amount of players they have lost, are injured or unavailable,” the former captain told the PA news agency.

“I do think Warren is going with the mindset of building depth and exposing players with a World Cup plan.

“And I think there were some positive signs in that Test series. I thought Ben Thomas looked quite comfortable in the number 10 shirt, Sam Costelow when he came off the bench did really well, and I thought the back-row worked incredibly hard.

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“The bottom line at the minute is Wales are in a rebuilding phase, and I thought there were enough promising signs on that tour to have something to build on.”

Wales will face Fiji, Australia and South Africa later this year on home soil and Biggar is enthused by those matches, if they can get players back from injury.

“You look at who is potentially going to be back available for the (first) autumn game against Fiji, players with experience who have been there and done it,” he said.

“These young boys at the minute are almost missing six or seven real senior guys to help them along.

“That’s what we had – the generation of people like myself, Leigh Halfpenny, Jon Davies, Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric – we came into quite a successful team with lots of senior professionals.

“At the minute, the boys have come in with not much experience and it is almost like they are having to learn on the hoof rather than have a number of experienced guys helping them along.

“I think the public will appreciate the job Warren has got now is very different to the job he had in his first spell in Wales.

‘Never-ending line of patience’

“There will clearly be patience (from the public) because of the obvious factors, but it is not a never-ending line of patience. They have to start winning matches, otherwise the pressure will be magnified more and more each game.”

Biggar, who currently plays his club rugby in the Top 14 for Toulon, admits it must be a different atmosphere for Gatland at the moment due to past successes.

“Warren has been used to success. He probably hasn’t had to go through too many periods like this in his coaching career,” he explained.

“So it is almost a different challenge for him, but the experience he has got and knowing what it takes to get teams winning will set him in a really good place.”

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