Gatland can get Wales on top again
Few people on God's earth know more about professional Welsh rugby than Warren Gatland, who successfully coached the Test side through three World Cup cycles across a dozen years.
Yet when the celebrated Mooloo Man from Waikato signed up for a second tour of duty ahead of the Six Nations, he found that he didn't know the half of it.
There were governance troubles, money supply troubles, form and fitness troubles – troubles on an industrial scale, which quickly resulted in a crisis of industrial relations. For all his experience, Gatland was taken aback. You could see it in his eyes and, increasingly as the tournament unfolded, hear it in his voice.
Under the circumstances, the pessimists on the western banks of the Severn were bound to express concern over what they perceived as the relative weakness of his 54-man training squad for the forthcoming global gathering in France. Ten uncapped players, another 14 in the single-figure category and, at the other end of the sporting lifespan, a bunch of individuals so far past their sell-by dates, they would not find a place on a supermarket shelf.
But the coach knows his onions. Back in 2011, precisely a third of his 30-man squad had yet to win 10 caps. They included George North, Rhys Priestland, Taulupe Faletau and Ken Owens (who would make his international debut during the competition).
Green as Wales may have been, their performances were as red-blooded as their shirts and they fought their way to a semi-final, which they might well have won but for Sam Warburton's early red card. Who can say, hand on heart, that this vintage is incapable of achieving something similar?
