Gatland needs to learn his history

SPEAKING your mind can be a hazardous business in any walk of life, all the more so in sport given its capacity to ridicule opinion and I speak from some experience.

So, too, does JJ Williams who tempted fate by volunteering the view that Wales could not win the World Cup with Dan Biggar at fly-half.

If you lead with your chin, you risk the sort of crushing counter-punch which Biggar delivered in his man-of-the-match role against England last weekend. He was perfectly entitled to the last word: “Special thanks to JJ Williams for his motivation.”

In such circumstances any coach will defend his man. Warren Gatland did that but then went on to make a few gratuitous comments amounting to a tacit admission that he doesn’t know his history, not any old history but the golden days of the Seventies when JJ provided the cutting edge for Wales and the Lions.

“I don’t know about that former Welsh player,” Gatland said before asking rhetorical questions which got a few cheap laughs. “Was (sic) he really old? Did he play in the Seventies? Probably. That does explain a few things.”

If by that he means someone of JJ’s vintage is too old to understand the modern game, then Gatland presumably decries the views of Williams’ contemporaries. They include Sir Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett and another Williams renowned for his initials and forthright views, JPR.