Wales coach “fancied” taking Dragons role

Editor

Wales defence coach Shaun Edwards has admitted that he “fancied” taking the Dragons head honcho’s job before deciding against it.

The 52-year-old was reported to be favourite for the role but the Welsh region announced on Monday that Ceri Jones would be their caretaker boss.

Edwards said that he initially wanted to take interim charge but admitted family matters were too important in what is a busy year for the coach, with the World Cup on the horizon.

“I spoke to the Dragons and I fancied going because I knew there were good lads there,” he said. “I thought with simplifying a few things they could definitely improve, particularly the defence.

“That’s obviously my specialist area but I’ve been an attack coach, I was backs coach for Wasps under Warren (Gatland) when we won three championships and the Heineken Cup.

“But the thing was that with it being a World Cup year I’m away from my family a lot and I’ve got two small children, one four and one eight months, and I just felt it was a little bit too much for my partner to look after the two kids for the next nine months.”

Edwards has also been working with fellow Welsh region the Ospreys in a consultancy capacity and said that he wanted to honour that deal.

“The Ospreys have been good to me and I like finishing a job,” the Wales coach added. “I think I did a decent job at Cardiff last year and I wanted to do a similar thing with the Ospreys.

“Every time I’ve gone in somewhere I’ve wanted to try and get those teams back into the Heineken Cup.

“We probably overachieved a bit last year with the Blues, winning the Challenge Cup, but my goal was getting them back into the Heineken Cup. It’s my goal with the Ospreys and we’ve not done that yet.”