It will be interesting to see what direction Welsh rugby goes in in the post-Gatland era. The Kiwi spent 12 years as Wales' head coach, winning four Six Nations championships.
They consistently played at a level beyond the sum of their parts, upsetting the odds to best much more talented teams.
Whether they can do that now that Gatland has stepped down remains to be seen. He was a coach who got as much as possible out of the team, often resorting to rather unorthodox methods to do so.
Speaking on Virgin Media ahead of today's game between Wales and Italy, Ronan O'Gara revealed the lengths Gatland went to in order to get every possible advantage. It was a bit bizarre:
"He had the boys putting on fake tan before games because they'd look bigger."@RonanOGara10 on how big a loss Warren Gatland will be for Wales. 🍊 😂#WALvITA #GuinnessSixNations #VMTVRugby pic.twitter.com/up2lxdIhLN
— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) February 1, 2020
Warren Gatland is huge loss to Welsh rugby... He had huge presence in the camp every time.
I remember spending time with players like Mike Phillips. He had the boys putting on fake tan before games because they would look bigger, that's how much they bought into what he said.
They were going to be the fittest, the fastest, the most physical team. When they were playing against South Africa, who were three stone bigger than them in every man, what were they going to do?
[Gatland] actually convinced them, in term of their minds, that they could actually do this. As Shane said, they overreach was huge at the time.
There's nothing happening in their club game, but when they play for Wales they take it to a whole new level.
Straight from the Gavin Henson playbook.
