Wasps supremo key to Wales revival

Dec 16 2007 Barry John, Wales On Sunday

WARREN Gatland cannot get Shaun Edwards down to Wales quick enough. The new Wales coach hopes to complete his backroom team this week and after viewing videos of Wales over the last couple of years, Gatland will see Wasps supremo Edwards as an integral part of his plan if he is to rejuvenate our ailing Welsh team.

Defensive guru Edwards was Gatland’s backs coach at Wasps and played an instrumental part in Wasps’ hat-trick of Premiership championships and a Heineken Cup victory during the Kiwi’s reign in London.

Edwards has since succeeded Gatland at Wasps and himself guided them to European glory so to attract Edwards to the Welsh national set-up would be a major scalp and a definite statement of intent by the new top man.

Edwards and Gatland, therefore, know each other’s strengths and weaknesses inside out.

Edwards was unanimously praised by the Cambridge University coach after the Light Blues beat Oxford in the Varsity match earlier this month.

Edwards gave Cambridge intense defensive coaching clinics throughout the term and it paid dividends as their incredible late defence won them the game.

I then recalled the ease with which South Africa opened up the fragile Welsh defence in last month’s Test match in Cardiff – so Edwards would be the key piece in Gatland’s coaching back-up jigsaw.

Another ex-Wasps colleague, Rob Howley, is inevitably high on Gatland’s hit-list as the new coach sees the former Wales scrum-half as his chosen backs coach. But it’s whether Howley would want to leave the Cardiff Blues coaching set-up now Dai Young’s side are at last showing signs of developing into a solid and competitive side.

Howley might decide not to leave the Blues now as he’ll want to see the whole thing through and enjoy the fruits of his labours.

Gatland insisted he would eventually employ one of the four Welsh regional coaches in his backroom team to groom his eventual successor. But I suspect that it is too early before he chooses either Lyn Jones, of the Ospreys, Dragons coach Paul Turner, Dai Young of the Blues or the Scarlets supremo Phil Davies – a move that’ll hopefully ensure our next national coach is Welsh.

Finally, it has been interesting to watch the swap-shop of international coaches as Australia last week broke with tradition and named a foreigner as their new top man. And, even worse for the Aussies, Robbie Deans is a New Zealander.

But I believe we got the coach we wanted. Gatland may not be made in Wales, but he is made for Wales.