The head coach’s inside knowledge means a greater insight into what to expect in the crucial Six Nations encounterWhen you have already coached the world-class talent in the team you are playing against at the weekend, it’s fair to say it won’t do you any harm. Information gleaned from reams of video or the brains of performance analysts will give you a pretty good picture. However, the experiences you have gone through and the intimate knowledge of the opposition’s key figures turns all that into 4K resolution.Warren Gatland will have felt his vision is particularly sharp this week. On Saturday, two great rivals go toe-to-toe in what is certainly the biggest matchup between the two since the pool game at...
The England and Wales head coaches, who share a huge amount of success and respect for each other, are likely to provide much entertainmentEddie Jones and Warren Gatland are going to have some fun next week. So far we’ve heard them both desperately vying to be the underdog – it’s the only time coaches ever compliment each other – but when we get into Test week we’ll see a few grenades launched from each side of the border.Personally, I love it. It’s two coaches who have huge respect for each other casually flirting in public. It’s hollow – because what they are saying publicly and what they are saying privately are two completely different things – but it’s great entertainment....
Last Six Nations hurrahs arrive for Warren Gatland and Joe Schmidt – and what an impact they have had on their teamsBack in the day when rugby was amateur but toying with professionalism, Wales and Ireland could usually be found scrapping for the Five Nations wooden spoon, claiming it eight times between them in the 1990s. Had there been world rankings, neither would have been on the first page. They were two countries known for their emotion rather than attention to detail, moments of brilliance only occasionally compensating for structural disrepair.Then along came two New Zealanders to lay a new foundation. Related: Six Nations could be tougher to win this year than the Rugby World Cup | Robert Kitson Continue...
A team once renowned for flakiness and unreliability now take some beating but the Wales coach will leave after the World Cup with praise rather than fanfare or gratitudeWarren Gatland will on Saturday reach 100 Test matches as Wales’s coach. He will get to the landmark 20 years to the day since he took over from Brian Ashton in charge of Ireland: his sacking three years later, in circumstances that read like something from a spy novel, remains the low point in his career, a blot all his success since has not entirely erased.As the amateur era drifted to its end, the winner of the match between Ireland and Wales tended to avoid the wooden spoon. Between 1986 and 1995...
England should venture outside their London moneypit and take a big game to rugby lovers otherwise disenfranchised by geography and, in some cases, historyIt is October 2007 and the clear Mediterranean sky is turning from sapphire blue to purest velvet. England, against all the odds, have just beaten Australia in the World Cup quarter-finals and down in the Vieux Port area of Marseille a monumental party is brewing. Even before France’s tournament-shaping game against New Zealand in Cardiff kicks off the harbourside vibe makes Twickenham feel like a suburban vicarage.So bienvenue with knobs on to Marseille as the Six Nations’s newest host city. Whether this Friday night’s contest between France and Italy in the 67,000-capacity Stade Vélodrome will induce a...