Gatland excited with challenges ahead

Warren Gatland will announce the Wales senior men’s squad for the Autumn Nations Series today and he can’t wait to get going with the first international campaign of 2024/25.

As well as admitting it has been “an incredibly challenging year” he believes the experience gained by so many of his younger players on tour in Australia will put them in a better place to face Fiji, Australia and the world champion Springboks at Principality Stadium next month.

“It has been an incredibly challenging year and I’m the first to put my hand up and recognise that, but I’m excited about the challenges ahead,” said Gatland.

“I promise you we’re going to work incredibly hard as a group and hopefully we can show some development as a squad in the autumn campaign. That’s important.

“As a coaching group we’ve identified a number of young players who are outstanding prospects for Wales in the future and who are incredibly talented. We’ve gone down that road and we want to spend more time with developing these players.

“After watching the first few rounds of regional rugby I’ve been impressed by the performances of a number of players, particularly some of the younger ones we’ve had in the squad.

“Along with the other coaches, I’m taking decisions that I think are the best for the future of Welsh rugby. It’s not about making decisions that try to protect my own position.

“It’s not about thinking ‘I’m under some pressure, should I pick an older or more experienced player who can potentially do a job for a short period over a younger player that we see has got a huge amount of potential’.

“Those are tough decisions to make but it’s about having the confidence and self-belief that you’re making the best decisions for Welsh rugby. It’s probably an unusual position for me to be in where you’re under that pressure, but I’m excited about the challenge.

“I’m well aware that international rugby is about performance and about results and that’s just a fact we have to deal with. With that comes expectation and external pressure – but that’s what drives me and gives me the motivation to get out there and work these players hard to hopefully get some results in the Autumn.”

There will be a number of more senior players in contention to return to the squad after missing the summer tour and they will provide experience alongside the younger players.

“I know we lost a lot of experience after the World Cup and we’ve been proud of our record at World Cups. There are potentially a couple of finals we should have made and we’ve been unfortunate about that,” added Gatland.

“The great thing about preparation for World Cups is that you have those players for three months so you are able to go into a lot of detail and do a lot of work. When the players come in for campaigns, whether it’s the Six Nations, the Autumn Nations Series or summer tours, you’ve basically got two weeks of preparation and six training sessions.

“Firstly, we’re looking for good men, men who want to be part of a team, who are prepared to go to the well and dig deep. A lot of players, particularly the younger ones, don’t always know the limits of what they can do, and how hard and far they can push themselves at the highest level.

“For a number of them they realise pretty quickly that the step up to international rugby is massive in terms of pace, physicality and intensity. I’ve always said as a coach that you can’t coach ‘experience’ – it has to be learned just by being out there and playing.

“A lot of people think players just turn up for training sessions but the life of a professional player is so much more detailed these days. It’s about getting up in the morning and having the right diet, having the right amount of sleep, doing the recovery after games, the recovery after training sessions, the preparation before games and doing the stretching to get themselves right.

“They also have to do their homework and analysis. The top professionals in the world all do the extra and that’s why they’re often the best-performing players. Footballers like Ronaldo or Messi aren’t simply the best because of their ability on the field, but because of the extra work they do off it in terms of training and preparation.

“It’s important for us to get that message across to the younger players about how important it is to do the extra work to take them to the next level. That’s how you have a long and successful career in rugby.”