Warren Gatland's first task

Yesterday the worst secret in rugby was finally out in the open with the appointment of Warren Gatland as the British and Irish lions coach for the 2013 tour to Australia. Almost immediately the speculation about players, test teams erupted, quite rightly Gatland himself saw that as premature his priority is to quickly get in place the best and most appropriate backroom staff that he possibly can. After a long coaching career in the Northern Hemisphere he will already have a long list of coaches and people he admires, respects and more significantly that he can work with, and that he can be sure that will put aside parochial national differences for the good of a polyglot British and Irish lions touring party.

When it comes to sources of good counsel Gatland is well aware that he has many experienced people to call upon. He has already said that he will talk to Graham Henry but the greatest Lion’s coach of all will be his first port of call; Sir Ian McGeehan’s mobile number  will be on speed dial; he may even choose to speak to the guru Sir Clive Woodward you can be sure that Gatland will leave no stone unturned. His priority over the next couple of weeks will not be the test team, perhaps not even the squad but managing to secure the services of the best coaches, analysts, medical staff that he can. Players will already put themselves under pressure to perform and Gatland and his selectors will realise that form fluctuates, there will be injuries and over the season new players emerge. He will look beyond the autumn internationals, the Six nations and watch players in the Aviva, the RaboDirect and the Super 14 as well. To do this properly will need lots of eyes and he will need to consider the make up of the party e.g. how many back row players to take? His relationship with Andy Irvine will be critical, he already knows Gerald Davies from Wales and the Lions in 2009 and that will ensure that proper chain of commend and demarcation of responsibilities will be easily established. Deciding on the composition of the rest of his team might not be so straightforward and it is here that Gatland will need to be aware of avoiding the accusation of Welsh bias, yet he will naturally want to stick with what and who he knows.

An international rugby team now has a vast panel of coaches, specialists and others with specific roles;

• Strength, conditioning and fitness
• Medical, doctor, physio, psychologist, sight, movement/gait analysis
• Notational analysis, sports science, media, legal, nutrition, chef

In terms of the game itself there are several broad headings that Gatland might consider; offence, defence, forwards, skills and yet even these can be broken down into other more specific areas, into individual as well as corporate areas e.g. the Line-out; strategy, calls, moves, movement, lifting, blocking, driving maul and of course the essential skill of throwing in! So, other coaches that might enter the equation might be for kicking, scrum, jackalling and tackling. All will need to fit into Gatland’s master plan that he will create to beat the Wallabies.

Perhaps his greatest difficulty will be the apparent plethora of professional high quality people he can select from. Given that Shaun Edwards is a shoo in for the role of Defence and Skills coach the next critical appointment will be Offence. The Wallabies back line on its day can be a fantastic unit capable of devastating any team so the choice of the Offence/Attacking coach will certainly be exercising Gatland’s mind. He will be considering the credentials of Joe Schmidt of Leinster very carefully and he knows the capabilities of Robert Howley very well but a dark horse for this position could be Alex King. He is doing a superb job at Clermont in the Super 14 and he played his best rugby under the tutelage of Gatland and Edwards at Wasps. The forward coach is not so easy. Gatland will bring a considerable influence here, and so he might well seek to divide the responsibilities here on a unit basis. Graham Rowntree has rightly built for himself an excellent reputation here. Gatland could do worse than ask Andy Robinson for assistance here; Scotland’s defeat of the Wallabies was not just based on rock solid defence and a tropical storm Robinson had worked out how to deny the wallaby’s ball. No-one understands back-row play better and that is the area that will be crucial to securing a Lions’ victory.

So, Gatland will not have entered the premature debate about the Lions’ test side he will have been thinking about his coaching panel and how he can use them to get the best out of the players. This is not an easy job, but Gatland set his stall out to get it, and he knows what it will take to be Lions coach to win a test series since the Lions of 1997.

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