Is Gatland the right man for the Lions?

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Since the summer series I'm having serious doubts about whether the Lions can win the series with Gatland at coach.

To be blunt I don't think Gatland has the nouse to put a team together to beat Australia.

He's turned Wales into the best, most powerful, organised, disciplined and structured team in the NH but that has been shown on 5 occaisions now not to be enough to beat Australia and even more times not enough to beat the SH teams..who wales play more than any other NH side at Gatlands behest.

This is not a criticism of Wales who have fantastic players, and I have huge respect for, but the way that Gatland has built the side and approaches the game.

As with Wasps, Wales are a team built on aggressive blitz defence, counterrattacking and physical superiority and when this is matched there is no plan B.

In the past 12 months the other NH teams haven't been able to match Wales physical intensity over 80 min, skill and offloading ability but the SH teams have shown they can, hence I can see Australia winning the series 2-1 with Gatland at the helm.

I'm not sure if there are alternatives though, with question marks over all the home nations international coaches right now.

Thoughts?

Had Howley got one over on the Wallaies then we would all be saying WG is the right man for the job! Fact is Howley stuffed up down under not WG (other than trying to impress the misses by cleaning her winders - should leave that to tradesmen) WG is th best man for the job because he is the standout best option from what is available. Now Geech has committed to Leeds I think even more it will be WG....but i don't want it to be because in Howley's hands I think Wales will stall at best and could have a shocker between now and next Autumn. For me the WRU need to stand firm and say no in the interests of Welsh rugby but i fear they won't

There could have been a clause in the contract that Gatland signed ahead of the 2011 World Cup that allows him time away to coach the 2013 Lions. If so, there's nothing the WRU can do.

I think there is a clause but its for 6 months holiday. Not sure thats applicable to the lions job, and anyway the lions want a coach for 12 months.
I was sure that the wru have already agreed to let gats manage the lions if he gets chosen?

Gatland is the most credentialled of the current crop of NH international coaches (Saint-André wasn't actually head of coach of Sale or Toulon so I'm not counting him) so of course he is the right man at present.

I am quite sure that Gatland understands his job very well. He has to choose the best combinations from the home nations that will best execute the game plan that he believes is most likely to win the test series and to that end I think that some posters here are oversimplifying what it means to do that job or seem to be under the impression that Gatland doesn't understand what it will mean to do that well.

I don't actually think that he has any intention of picking mostly Welsh players - we may see that in some of the more marginal calls but not otherwise.

One thing's sure as sh!t - the Aussie-Wales whitewash is probably the best thing that could have happened to the Lions as it proved one thing: sticking a Wales only XXII out there with a relatively limited gameplan (effective though that may have been in the 6N) might take one test, but it won't win the series.

The only thing that would ever disappoint me about the Lions (which are a wonderful institution) is when plain national bias (in terms of strategy or players chosen) bleeds all over the selection strategy because plainly (have a look at the 2005 NZ Lions DVD) this poisons the entirely squad. Woodward wasn't made to pay nearly high enough for that. It should never happen again.

Andy Irvine will keep things honest and traditional, hopefully.

George Carlin wrote:One things sure as sh!t - the Aussie-Wales whitewash is probably the best thing that could have happened to the Lions as it proved one thing: sticking a Wales only XXII out there with a relatively limited gameplan (effective though that may have been in the 6N) might take one test, but it won't win the series.

Hopefully it'll prove to have been the best thing that could have happened to Wales, too.

If a 3-0 whitewash were the best thing that could have happened to Wales then I hate to see the worst thing. Would you have minded winning it 3-0?

I think you're choosing to miss the point there, clever clogs.

I was going to write an article about this but didn’t bother for fear of it turning into a wumfest but on top of the OP questioning the tactics of WG what do people think the impact of losing 5 in a row against Australia will have on the mentality of both WG and the Welsh players?

Wales are clearly the best team in the UK & Ire at the moment yet they weren’t able to do in 5 attempts what Scotland, Ireland and England have all achieved in their last game against the wallabies (think that's right?). I don’t think there is much argument that on paper WG is the standout candidate for the job and likewise there could be a strong argument for a large % of Wales starting 15 being the number 1 candidate in their position. However at what point do the lions selectors needs to consider which players/coaches have the mental fortitude to get a win away from home against the Aussies?

Toadfish wrote:I was going to write an article about this but didn’t bother for fear of it turning into a wumfest but on top of the OP questioning the tactics of WG what do people think the impact of losing 5 in a row against Australia will have on the mentality of both WG and the Welsh players?

Wales are clearly the best team in the UK & Ire at the moment yet they weren’t able to do in 5 attempts what Scotland, Ireland and England have all achieved in their last game against the wallabies (think that's right?). I don’t think there is much argument that on paper WG is the standout candidate for the job and likewise there could be a strong argument for a large % of Wales starting 15 being the number 1 candidate in their position. However at what point do the lions selectors needs to consider which players/coaches have the mental fortitude to get a win away from home against the Aussies?

I agree that could be a problem, but in those last 5 games Wales have been within a score in 4 of them and been within a kick/point in 3 of them. I reckon that Gats will choose at the very least 8 players from Ireland/England/Scotland in his starting line-up and those players (and their mentality of beating Oz) should negate any negative mentality from the Welsh players.

Personally I think there's going to be huge competition all over the park and you could only see 2/3 Welsh players in the starting lineup.

I really don't think that Wales's failure to beat Australia is down to some mental hang-up when it comes to southern-hemisphere teams. I'd say the reason we haven't beaten them (apart from conceding late penalties) is because the gameplan that is sufficient to win* in the northern hemisphere isn't enough to beat the Big Three (as has been mentioned above).



* - And let's not forget that Gatland's gameplan only saw us squeak past Ireland and England in the Six Nations.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:I really don't think that Wales's failure to beat Australia is down to some mental hang-up when it comes to southern-hemisphere teams. I'd say the reason we haven't beaten them (apart from conceding late penalties) is because the gameplan that is sufficient to win* in the northern hemisphere isn't enough to beat the Big Three (as has been mentioned above).

* - And let's not forget that Gatland's gameplan only saw us squeak past Ireland and England in the Six Nations.

I'm not sure I agree - the game plan (in the WC and the summer tour) was good enough to get us to within a kick of the (at that time) reigning World champions, where we missed 2 or 3 kicks, and against Oz we were within a kick in 3 of the games where we again missed kicks - you can't say that the SH's superior talent/playing style/mentality made us miss those kicks - which had they gone over would have meant we'd have beaten SA, won our WC pool group, won the series in Oz and finished 3rd in the WC.

Smirnoff, I'll put it another way: the current gameplan is enough to get us close to the best sides, resulting either in narrow victories, as in the Six Nations, or in narrow defeats, as in the World Cup and the recent Test series against the Wallabies. My point is that our approach now seems to be all about containment, staying with the opposition and hoping we sneak it at the end. I think we have the personnel to do more than that (the Lions certainly will); we should back ourselves and look to beat teams well.

I think we have the personnel to really impose our game on the SH sides (and NH sides) if all our players are on form - ie if Warbs/Lydiate are fit/on form, if our halfbacks were playing well and offering a threat, good distribution and good kicking, if we had settled combinations in the front 5 and a smooth lineout operation.

But IMO if one or two of those things are missing then we really start struggling, especially against the SH sides - in the WC we had almost a whole team of on form players, but coz we had to put Hook in at FB he let in a very soft try and as a result we lost the game, in the Oz tour (and 6 Ns) our kicking game didn't work and our Scrum Half was providing poor service, meaning our backs were suddenly negated to a degree.

We're getting to a point where our strength, depth and gameplan can cope with players missing/off form, but we're not there yet, and until we do we won't be able to impose our gameplan on the best sides while we have off form players in the side (IMO of course).

But at the same time we've more than lived with Oz and SA

2 reasons Gats should not be coach

5-0 v Aus
Effect on Wales progress if he goes for a year

He will be though