Warren Gatland vows to revive Wales with return to ‘no excuses’ culture | Wales

Warren Gatland has vowed to reintroduce the “no excuses” environment that revolutionised Welsh rugby between 2008 and 2019 as he prepares for another crack at the Six Nations and World Cup next year.

Gatland had eight weeks to prepare for his first audition in the Six Nations in 2008, when he inspired a Wales team that had been knocked out of the World Cup in the pool stages by Fiji a few months earlier to notch a first win at Twickenham against England in 20 years.

Now he has 52 days to try to master-mind a gameplan to overcome the world’s top-ranked team, Ireland, when Andy Farrell’s side will head to Cardiff as tournament favourites.

Given his last Six Nations game was a 25-7 drubbing of the Irish in Cardiff to secure his third grand slam in 2019, he returns knowing exactly what to expect and how to get the most out of a playing group that still contains many of the players he coached previously.

“How do you create an environment where there are no excuses? Roger Lewis and Martyn Phillips [previous chief executives] gave us the tools to create that environment, so when players come into camp, we could get the best out of them,” Gatland said.

“We prided ourselves in the past on being able to do that. The challenge is doing that in the coming weeks so that players are excited about wearing that jersey and leaving everything out on the pitch in terms of getting performances and results.

“What are the expectations at the moment? I’d probably need a discussion on that, but you’ve always got to believe and dream. I look at success as not always being about winning but about overachieving. With my upbringing in New Zealand as a Kiwi, we always believed if you work hard, you get results – that’s always been my attitude and you must never ever be afraid to take something on.

“I wouldn’t be here doing the job unless I thought we were capable of winning things.”

The uncompromising approach he adopted in his first stint in charge earned Wales three grand slams, a No 1 world ranking and two World Cup semi-finals. If things looked bad when he took up his appointment in 2007, the landscape is not that much healthier now.

He has returned at the end of a year in which Wales won only three times, lost at home against Italy and Georgia and surrendered a 21-point lead to Australia in their last match. That led to the sacking of Wayne Pivac and an SOS call to Gatland.

“It’s always a bit of a rollercoaster in Welsh rugby but you’re judged on two things – one of them is the Six Nations,” Gatland said. “It’s probably been a little bit up and down, although potentially a grand slam could have been won in 2020. There’s no doubt Covid has had an impact on things in the last few years as well.

“The Six Nations is incredibly important, as is trying…