Gatland provides positive outlook

Mar 16 2008 by James Corrigan, Wales On Sunday

IT is an old journalistic trick to begin an article about a game taking place in the evening with the words: “Regardless what happened last night…”

If you ever see that phrase, you can be fairly sure that the said reporter did not have the time and/or the inclination to wait for the match to finish.

You can then dismiss the rest of the piece as irrelevant.

But not this time. Because last night at the tension-filled Millennium Stadium was the perfect “regardless what happened” situation.

In many senses it mattered not a jot if Wales won by 50 points or lost by 50 points.

Of course, it mattered to the players, coaches and fans, because what is rugby if the result is a mere footnote?

It was not a poetry reading taking place by the side of the Taff. No, the magic of sport is not knowing what is going to happen – and then having kittens as it unfolds.

Yet, what I mean by “regardless what happened” is that progress under Warren Gatland could be measured and appreciated way before Les Bleus ran out onto in their bid to ruin the red dream.

Wales are going places, with or without a packed trophy cabinet. Only the Welsh Rugby Union can mess it up now.

However, I am pretty confident they will desist from performing that age-old WRU routine of turning a silk purse into a sow’s ear.

Roger Lewis, the bubbly chief executive, is many things, but one thing he is not is a fool.

He knows there will be the odd hard day after all these months spent in wonderland.

He knows Gatland will need his backing at certain times and Lewis will not hesitate in providing it.

“Gatlandgate” is a cliché that must remain locked tight in the bottom drawer. This man can take Welsh rugby back to places it never thought would be revisited.

This nation has always had the rugby talent, the rugby conviction but now we have the rugby professionalism. The transformation has been on the Sea of Galilee side of miraculous.

How did he do it and do it so quickly? The feeling persists that there couldn’t have been much wrong with the squad in the first place and that makes it a little bit frustrating.

Think of where we would be now if the success of 2005 had been built on rather than trampled all over by those desperate to take all the credit?

But then, Gatland has told Welsh rugby that it must stop looking back and, as ever, there is so much sense in what he says. Forward is the only direction – and what a direction it promises to be.

For not only do we have a coach with the wherewithal but a captain who, to my mind, has the potential to be the most influential since Merv The Swerve was barking out the orders.

Ryan Jones has grown as a leader throughout this campaign.

At the beginning he seemed almost timid, that pleasant, soft side of his character forcing him to tread a wary path.

By the end he had the eyes of steel, that Churchillian purpose and an authority that positively filled the room.

Watching him waiting by the side of the Croke Park pitch last Saturday and slapping each of his men on the back as they marched out to do battle for the Triple Crown was one of my favourite sights of the Championship.

At last, there is a skipper to look up to and to look up to for all the right reasons.

Jones does not have his own agenda, does not want to be the “big I am”, but simply carries the responsibility of his team.

Fortunately for us, those Gwent shoulders are very, very wide.

We can only pray the rest of his sometimes brittle frame remains as solid and he is there to take us on to the next stage.

That will involve a summer tour to South Africa, when we can finally travel with the full complement and make it a meaningful gauge of our ability.

I’m not about to tell Gatland what to do but how thrilling would it be to see a Welsh first XV – and I mean “THE first XV” – run out in that first Test at Bloemfontein?

Sure, we may get beat and, who knows, even beaten badly, but we can depart Vodacom Park safe in the knowledge that Warren and the boys will work their socks off to improve.

Regardless what happened.