MILLENNIUM SHOWDOWN: TENTATIVELY, there were a few efforts made towards seeking a full and forthright confession from the coach at the Welsh team hotel in the Vale of Glamorgan.
While Warren Gatland’s second string contrived to pull last week’s fumble against Italy out of the fire, in the doing they allowed any chance of a Championship win slip further away in the Rome sun.
Victory in the Millennium Stadium would smooth the path towards forgiveness but this could end awfully for the Kiwi coach if Ireland can grasp the moment.
The coach and players were eager yesterday to point out that the demanding Welsh public would be “delirious” if Wales had found themselves in this position last season – three wins out of four. A year in sport . . .
But Gatland was in little mood for deflecting blame. Wales need to bridge a deficit of 13 points and he has made eight personnel changes to the starting line-up to do just that. Don’t ask him to kick himself any more over last week’s debacle. The position in which Wales find themselves is hurting just fine.
“I’ve already stated publicly there were too many changes against Italy. I’ve put my hand up to say I made a mistake,” said the coach.
“In retrospect we’re prepared to accept that. If people say that it was disrespectful to the Six Nations Championship and there are a lot of people around the Six Nations for longer than I am, then I am prepared to listen to their views.
“Tactically against Italy we got things wrong as well. Maybe kicked too much. If we’d put more points on then maybe we’d have felt more satisfied.”
With the mea culpa complete it was time to thrust the pressure back over to Dublin. The consensus of opinion in the Wales camp is that Ireland arrive to their Cardiff stronghold as favourites despite Gatland throwing down a challenge of sorts to those older players in the Irish team, the ones he has coached before.
His term in Ireland might be instrumental in shaping the Welsh changing-room come match day.
Referring to last year’s poor Six Nations that resulted in the departure of coach Eddie O’Sullivan after a bitterly disappointing World Cup appeared like he was turning the knife.
“It’s a long time ago now. For me it’s in the past.” he says of his time as Irish coach.
“It’s given me a little bit of an insight into the types of pressures some of the players will be under at international level.
“When there has been that expectation on players to perform in Six Nations tournaments and World Cups, they have sometimes faltered a little bit so it will be interesting to see how Declan (Kidney) is going to handle that and the players handle that this week.”
Never overcomplicated or, with the exception of last week’s team selection, one to race too far ahead of himself, Gatland sees the match in terms of a simple equation.
“Win the game is first,” he says. “Win the Championship, the Triple Crown and deny them the Grand Slam. Then see what position we are in and hopefully start thinking about the points.
“We are confident we can come up with a win and who knows what will happen if we can get ourselves ahead in the game and that Millennium Stadium factor begins to kick in.
“There is obviously a lot of pressure and expectation on Ireland,” he added before his revelatory St Patrick’s Day Simpsons episode take on Irish rugby.
“After the Scottish game, the Irish players were an hour and a half in the changing-rooms celebrating. They’re fairly happy at where they’re at.”
Yesterday’s Welsh selection was in part to counter Ireland and in the pairing of match-short Gavin Henson and last week’s try scorer Tom Shanklin the coach’s decision was also freighted with what the combined strength of captain Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy may ask of Wales.
Experience comes in at outhalf where the 79 caps of Stephen Jones replace the 33-capped James Hook.
There is a complete change of frontrow with Gethin Jenkins and Adam Jones packing down with hooker Matthew Rees.
Ospreys secondrow Ian Gough returns while captain Ryan Jones resumes as team leader with Martyn Williams coming into the backrow at openside flanker.
No area of the team is untouched.
“I think we’re just looking at experience, the combinations with players coming back in and also previous games,” says Gatland. “But that’s probably the most experienced back line we can put out there. That’s the thinking behind it. Tom Shanklin has been our form centre this year.
“For the Irish, it tends to be a strength of theirs, their attacking ability so we need a really strong defensive combination.”
The Munster factor has also come into player thinking. Captain Jones sees six of them lined up against him in the pack. Two more in midfield. It is not a comforting sight.
“Munster are one of the best clubs in Europe, if not the best,” says the powerful Ospreys flanker.
“They have experience of winning big one-off games. It’s a challenge. It’s not called Test rugby for nothing. . . .It’s a damn tough task.”
Reality creeping in. If there was ever a doubt.
