Warren Gatland wants his players to be more vocal as he plots a way of beating the major southern hemisphere nations following years of near misses since taking over as the head coach at the end of 2007. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all visit the Millennium Stadium in November. Wales’s combined record against them in the Gatland era is one victory and 22 defeats, the solitary success coming against the Wallabies in 2008. Their last Test, against South Africa in Nelspruit last June, saw Wales lead for most of the match, at one point by 17 points, only to succumb to a late penalty try.
Australia’s past eight victories in the series have all been by single-figure margins, and while Gatland said his priority going into the November series and the Six Nations was next year’s World Cup and getting out of a group that includes the hosts England and the Wallabies, he admitted that ending the 20-match losing sequence to the southern big three would be significant psychologically.
Sam Warburton has retained the captaincy but Gatland expects more from him. “The challenge for Sam is to take the next step,” he said. “He has had experience in leadership since 2011 and he has had the Lions. He’s done it in his own quiet way, but you go through stages and we are looking for him to be a bit more vocal within the squad, a wee bit more demanding.
“We have some great leaders, like Alun Wyn Jones, who did a fantastic job in South Africa, and there’s a nice balance of leadership and good experience within the squad. It is important they are vocal. A criticism in the past that we have been a little bit quiet with not enough senior players giving voice. We need to go through and show them the videos, and say: ‘Look, this is what happened. What would we do again?’ It’s about making sure we are not making poor decisions when we are under pressure. When you look back, we have made them in the last few minutes that have cost us a handful of games we should have won.”
Warburton is the only Wales player with a dual contract under the agreement between the Welsh Rugby Union and the four regions, but Gatland hopes to add five more shortly and will present the regions with another six names, including that of the flanker Dan Lydiate, who has fallen out of favour at Racing Métro.
“We have had discussions with the regions and we will meet the players’ agents to talk about salaries and expectations,” Gatland said. “It should not take too much longer to put things in place but it does not matter if it not done before the start of the autumn internationals because the year has pretty much gone for the players and next year will not kick in too much because of the World Cup. We are limited on numbers because of the money we have [£3.3m] and there has to be planning for years two and three to repatriate players from England and France. I hope we can sort out Dan in the coming week.”
The Wales players will come into camp on Monday and while the side to face Australia will have a familiar look, Rhys Webb is set to partner Dan Biggar at half-back after their impressive start to the campaign with Ospreys. “Rhys is playing with vision and maturity and I do not think Mike Phillips will be coming in as the No1 scrum-half, but the greatest thing about him is that he is a fighter.
“It would be nice to beat the likes of Australia and New Zealand because of the confidence it would generate, but the whole process is about qualifying for the knockout stages of the World Cup and we are treating the autumn and the Six Nations as preparation camps for that tournament, although the rugby is important. We want the players to peak for the World Cup as athletes would for the Olympics and I am not sure any other country will have the confidence and courage to do that.”