Loose Pass: Warren Gatland’s departure, the state of the game and the onset of Super Rugby
Former Wales head coach Warren Gatland and the Super Rugby Pacific trophy.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with Warren Gatland’s departure, the state of the game and the onset of Super Rugby…
A legacy tarnished
Opinion on Warren Gatland’s return to Wales was already divided. It has only divided further since. But with his departure announced on Tuesday, the one strand of opinion that no longer stands divided is that Mr. Gatland’s time in Wales is now marked with a number of asterisks, as well as one marked with a number of red ticks.
He leaves with an overall record of 76 wins, 73 defeats and two draws. Remove the recent run of 14 defeats on the bounce and that’s 76 wins, 59 defeats, a 55.5 per cent win ratio. Considering Wales’ economic size, considering the state Wales was in when he took over – dumped out of a World Cup by Fiji and on the back of two fifth-placed finishes in the Six Nations – that is still no mean record. None of his detractors – and they’re queuing up at the moment – can complain that he has not done a good job overall, that he has not been a good servant to Welsh rugby.
And yet… that legacy. He left behind a story of success and achievement initially. Even on his return he glued together an increasingly fractured landscape and oversaw a brave run to the 2023 World Cup that ended in a narrow defeat to a very good Argentina team. But what else has he left behind?
It’s somewhat instructive that there are not scores of the players who formed the core of Mr. Gatland’s decade queuing up to defend him at the moment. Indeed, even before the current run, several have gone on record to say that Gatland also had a painfully ruthless streak in terms of ending international careers and being light on feedback. None, aside from Mike Philips, have stuck the boot in for the sake of it, but none have also gone on record to say they recognise the patterns of a greater plan taking shape.
Most pertinently, any form of succession planning to the 2023 World Cup squad in Wales seems to be completely absent. That is not the fault of Mr. Gatland alone; covid and a dreadfully-run union have been significant contributors, but nor, after two years in the role, should the word ‘completely’ apply there.
The fact is also that since Mr. Gatland left Wales in 2019, the same mutters of discontent have followed him around. Chiefs fans in his Waikato homeland do not remember the 2020-2022 period fondly. Individual player development has rarely been a strength that has been lauded. Rigid game-plans and the inability of players, especially during the time at the Chiefs, to think on their feet. Strategic nous, an eye for small details in game-plans, an emphasis on accuracy and nuance in game-play and clearly-defined plans and strategies: all of these have been a strength, as well as creating systems to make a team far greater than the sum of its parts.
But development and man-management less so. And this, really, is what Welsh rugby needs right now and has needed since Wayne Pivac’s time ended, far more than a master game-plan and tactical autocracy.
The writing for Mr. Gatland and Wales was possibly on the wall when he revealed at a press conference that the problems he had encountered at the WRU on his return in 2023 were so significant that he might not have taken the job on in the first place.
That writing was coloured further when he offered to resign at the end of the last Six Nations after defeat to Italy. The WRU however, continued to place its hopes in Mr. Gatland, perhaps refusing to see what he saw: that the nature of the job in this moment required someone with a different skill set to his own.
But he’s now gone at a highly-damaging moment, leaving the Wales he took to dizzy heights a decade ago now back lower than they were when he took over back in 2008. And looking at the players he leaves behind, his legacy will not be one to be built on, rather one to abandon.
It’s a shame it ends like this. Wales fans of all shapes and sizes will remember all the Grand Slams fondly, remember with glee how Wales dumped England out of their own World Cup, reflect that two World Cup semi-final defeats were both games that could easily have gone the other way.
Mr. Gatland has achieved more with Wales than any other coach in the country’s history. But while he leaves a history of achievements, he also now leaves an unholy mess. It’s not entirely of his own making, but it’s certainly one that he was unable to clean up. It’s a tarnished legacy.
Super Rugby starting with a whimper
Loose Pass has been on family business in New Zealand the past ten days and had, prior to the trip, been looking forward to the Super Rugby buzz often felt before at this time of year down under.
Tumbleweeds. A few column inches in papers. The Breakdown doing its thing manfully. A few bits and bobs of chat around the place. But in the words of one chap in an Auckland bar yesterday: “Rugby here is dying a bit. It’s getting tough to solve.”
It’s instructive that New Zealand’s best-selling sports jersey recently has been the Inter Miami one with a Messi on the back. The All Blacks do not have much of an aura at the moment, but mostly the problem has been about both the marketing and the splintering of the landscape.
Back to that chap in the bar again: “February is not a good time to start. We’re all still busy with summer. And who do we support? We’ve got the Blues until June, but if you like your Premier club rugby we’ve got that starting in April too. Then you’ve got the provincial teams, then you’ve got the All Blacks.
There’s no linearity, no clarity, you’re asking fans to serve multiple masters. Super Rugby is far less fun without the South African teams (and why are we ignoring Japanese teams if we want it to be richer) while the provincial tournaments are close to meaningless.
Television coverage means games are on at weird times and easier to see on the tube than to make the effort to go to the stadium. It’s not a happy camp at the moment and we’re losing ground.”
Maybe not everyone’s opinion, but given the lack of buzz palpable in Auckland this week, an instructive opinion nonetheless.
In other news
One of those regular ‘are we really going in the right direction’ laments here, but leaving aside the departure of Mr. Gatland, Tuesday/Wednesday headlines around rugby don’t make for great reading.
Government concerns about the Premiership’s financial viability. New Zealand rugby lawyering up on Ineos and Sir Jim Ratcliffe. London Irish return in danger. In the past couple of weeks, the French union losing money at quite a disturbing rate. An almost-total lack of visibility surrounding Super Rugby’s start this weekend. A worryingly poor Six Nations and the ongoing questions surrounding the protectionist antics of World Rugby/Six Nations denying Georgia their dues.
The concussion case closing in on its hour in court.
Let’s hope the game’s rush hour of late February/early March gives us a little more to play with.
READ MORE: Opinion: Warren Gatland’s sacking was overdue but he deserved a better farewell
