Back 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.
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When Graham Henry took over Wales in 1998, they conceded 96 points to South Africa – it would have been a century but for a late dropped pass – having shipped 60 to England and 51 to France earlier in the year. But soon they went on their best winning run for 90 years.
When Warren Gatland took charge of Ireland during the 1998 Five Nations, Ireland were on their way to a third successive wooden spoon. In 2000, the first year of the Six Nations, they finished third, their highest placing for 13 years, and were runners-up the following year, an achievement that earned him the sack.
Henry did not last much longer with Wales, worn down by his experience with the 2001 Lions in South Africa when some Welsh players who felt they had not been given a chance to challenge for a place in the Test side rebelled and he found on his return that his authority had been eroded.
Gatland and Henry started a process of profound change that has culminated in Ireland and Wales now standing at second and third in the world rankings, respectively. Gatland has been in charge of Wales since the end of 2007 while another New Zealander, Joe Schmidt, has been Ireland coach since 2013. Two teams who a generation before were scraping along the bottom have now won the Six Nations eight times between them.
With New Zealand leading the world rankings, the top three countries have a Kiwi in charge. The fourth-placed side, England, are coached by an Australian, Eddie Jones, but in the autumn he recruited a former All Blacks coach, John Mitchell, to help add discipline and a sense of direction to his side after a run of five defeats in six Tests.
If Wales and Ireland win their opening matches this weekend, there is every chance they will meet in Cardiff in the last round with the title at stake. It would be a fitting final Six Nations weekend for both Gatland and Schmidt, who are moving on after the World Cup. France away and England at home were fixtures the two countries used to go long periods without winning, but now they are both favourites to start with wins in their respective fixtures.
Gatland and Schmidt have been successful because while they have both brought a New Zealand approach to their teams – one based on the premise that success only comes with hard work and meticulous preparation – they have not coached as they would in New Zealand, recognising that skill levels there are the highest in the world. Instead they have focused on the possible, stripping away emotion and bringing consistency where there was volatility.
Gatland’s first coaching job in Ireland was with Galwegians in the early 1990s when he still played for Waikato. His first match in charge was in Sligo, a two-hour trip, and with less than three hours to go to kick-off, the players were still in the clubhouse. Gatland ordered everyone to get on the bus and with one player in the toilet and two still to turn up, ordered the driver to get going. A few miles from the ground, he asked the driver to pull over, told the players to get out, making them run behind the coach and only letting them back on after a mile.
He had shown them who was boss and within a few weeks, Galwegians started a 13-match winning run. When Schmidt took his first training session with Leinster, he bawled out Brian O’Driscoll, making the point early that there was no one bigger than he was and that he would treat the players equally.
The two coaches, in different ways, exude authority and that is reflected in the disciplined way their sides play.
Wales, the land of Barry John, Gerald Davies and Phil Bennett, is still a nation where romanticism lurks, and there have been rumblings about the style of play under Gatland. But the trade-off has been close-fought contests against the best teams in the world, the salvaging of respect and the team’s most successful period since the 1970s. This has been achieved against a backdrop of a struggle for Wales’s four regions in Europe and the loss of players to clubs in England and France. Schmidt only selects players based in Ireland and most of them play for two of the European game’s powerhouses, Leinster and Munster.
Wales had started to decline in the 1980s after the glory of the decade before and their 1988 tour to New Zealand showed why. Wales’s training sessions often bordered on the casual with banter flying around and they could stretch on aimlessly. There was a closeness between coaches and players but in the All Blacks camp there was a distance.
Before the first Test in Christchurch, the All Blacks trained early in the morning at a school. The grass was still snow-white with frost and they had a scrummaging session, eight forwards against a machine with the head coach Alex Wyllie standing watching with a whistle stashed between his lips. Steam rose into the air as if someone had lit a bonfire and it was like that for 20 intense minutes. Barely a word was spoken. Both teams played as they trained that series and the result was two 50-pointers for the All Blacks.
That is how Ireland and Wales train now, no longer boats against the current borne ceaselessly back into the past; red and green coated in honest black.
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