‘That’s the last thing I want’ – Warren Gatland in resignation offer after disastrous Six Nations

Wales head coach Warren Gatland has revealed that he offered to resign following their disastrous Six Nations campaign.

The 60-year-old presided over a disappointing tournament which saw them lose all five matches, resulting in the wooden spoon.

Their final defeat came against Italy after they succumbed 24-21 to the Azzurri at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.

Poor performance

It was yet another disappointing performance from the Welsh as they found themselves 24-7 down going into the final two minutes.

A couple of late tries did lessen the embarrassment slightly, but it could not mask what has been a dreadful Six Nations for the 2023 Rugby World Cup quarter-finalists.

Gatland has a contract in place until the end of the 2027 World Cup and the New Zealander insists that he is committed to the role, despite offering to step down.

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“Yes, absolutely. I’ve made that commitment. I just said to Abi (WRU chief executive Abi Tierney) in the changing room ‘If you want me to resign, I’m quite happy to do that’. She said ‘Like hell, that’s the last thing I want, that’s what I’m really afraid of’.

“But I can promise you we’ll go away and review this really carefully. We’ve already done some review stuff and (we’ll) work on areas that need to improve.”

Gatland has looked to refresh his squad, bringing in a number of younger players, and the head coach insists that the future is bright.

Inexperience

“We’re gutted and we are hurting as players and coaches – and I know the fans are hurting,” he said.

“We’re probably a little bit rock bottom at the moment, but I do see light at the end of the tunnel. I see some excellent players who with time are going to be fantastic internationals.

“We’ve got a huge amount of inexperienced players who haven’t played a lot of regional rugby. We’re exposing them at Test level, which is a bit of a challenge.

“This rebuild isn’t harder than we thought, we knew the inexperience we had in the squad and the players we asked to step up to leadership roles. For us it’s about taking the good out of the games and showing what we need to do.

“I can’t question the effort of the boys and in fairness to Italy we didn’t put them under a huge amount of pressure and they managed the game well.

“I’m really excited about this group with some youngsters who will learn from this experience and how to simplify the game to try and get on the front foot, which will help us.”

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