Plan to give Scotland a dressing down

Feb 9 2008 by Steffan Rhys, Western Mail

THE psychological battle ahead of Wales’ game with Scotland will be raised a notch later today after a secret decision to lead the visitors into the home dressing room.

Wales coach Warren Gatland and his team have insisted that the Scots be made to feel as unwelcome as possible by being placed in unfamiliar surroundings decked in Welsh imagery.

The Western Mail understands the dressing rooms have been given a makeover in a bid to unnerve the Scots, who will be confronted with the opposite of what they would expect.

The Welsh team, meanwhile, will be in what was, until today, the away dressing room.

But Gatland has reportedly decided that the enormous dressing rooms are no longer to be known as “home” and “away”, but as dressing rooms “one” and “two”.

Sports psychologists last night said similar “psyche out” moves were often repeated in the world of high-stakes sport, but said home advantage plus a heightened sense of team spirit following last week’s victory at Twickenham would be more decisive.

“A lot of diversionary techniques are used before games but those using them have little way of knowing what their effect will be,” said sports psychologist Dr Paul McCarthy of Staffordshire University.

“They can certainly have the opposite effect to what is desired when, in the face of opposition, teams foster a sense of team unity and mob identity. It may affect the Scots’ preparation in the sense that it’s an unexpected event, so it could throw a rigid preparation routine.

“But Wales’ greatest advantage is the greater team constant – the so-called ‘collective efficacy’ – fostered by last week’s win at Twickenham.”

The changing room switch is the latest in a long tradition of tactics employed by international rugby teams before matches.

Before a clash with Wales at the old National Stadium, then England manager Geoff Cooke played snippets of fine English plays to the music of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau in the team hotel to counter the effect of the emotional anthem on the pitch. And the Irish team have in the past found themselves locked out of the Twickenham dressing room before kick-off.

Conversely, in an attempt to make his players feel at home, Gatland and his staff last week stuck copies of the Western Mail, containing dozens of readers’ good luck messages to the Welsh team, on the dressing room walls.

“It is initially an attempt to psyche out and intimidate the opposition early,” said Olympic sport psychologist Dr Barry Cripps.

“At this level, it’s all about getting a good start in rugby. Once the game is 10 minutes old it’s honours even and none of this is remembered. It’s highly unethical but, of course, at that level of sport nobody worries about ethics.”

Much has been made of the psychology surrounding the Millennium Stadium dressing rooms ever since they opened in 1999, with 11 consecutive losers among English football teams who used the stadium’s south dressing room until a Stoke City play-off win in 2002.

In 2006, New Zealand boss Graham Henry’s battle to get the psychological edge, a trait he was famous for at Wales, was seen by many as one of the key factors behind the All Blacks performing the haka in their dressing room instead of on the pitch, while blaming the WRU for the no-show.

But Gatland yesterday said the move was purely a practical one.

“Dressing rooms are just dressing rooms, it’s not something I get worried about,” he said.

“One changing room has got quite a nice ambience to it, in the old dressing room it was difficult to see all of the players because they were behind you when you were addressing them. In the changing room we are in at the moment you can view everyone. They are both pretty similar but there’s a slight difference in layout.

“It wasn’t my decision, it was something we discussed with the management and the players. This is not a dictatorship, everything I do is consulted with the players and the other coaches. You don’t get emotionally attached to dressing rooms because that’s not what delivers a performance.”

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