Gatland's future still up in the air
Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:32
Will he stay on to 2015? Wales coach Warren Gatland. (c) Getty
Wales coach Warren Gatland's future is undecided, with a contract extension until the 2015 World Cup still on the table and by no means out of the question.
Gatland will guide Wales to the 2011 World Cup in his homeland, New Zealand, but the question is whether or not he will stay in the Land of the Long White Cloud, or choose to fight on with his talented crop of young Welsh stars.
Gatland took change of the team in 2008 and found immediate success, leading Wales to a Grand Slam in the Six Nations in his first year in charge.
Wales Rugby Union (WRU) Chief Executive Roger Lewis has been in talks with the Kiwi coach, in an attempt to negotiate a new contract.
"We're talking at the moment and I've had a lot of discussions with Roger Lewis about the potential for an extension, so I'm just weighing that up [against] the family pressure from New Zealand, because I they are quite keen for Dad to come back," Gatland told the BBC.
"There is a big part of me that still wants to stay here."
Gatland has a number of talented young players in his current squad, which he admitted could tempt him to stay on and build a strong team to contest the 2015 World Cup.
"I think if you look potentially at Wales in 2011 and 2015 - Wales could only lose four of five players in the next four years, with Stephen Jones, Shane Williams and Martyn Williams retiring, but everyone else could be there until 2015 - which would be an old side, but really experienced," he said.
Wales are looking to pick themselves up after consecutive defeats by the All Blacks on their mid-year tour to New Zealand, where they went down 9-42 and 10-29 against Richie McCaw's powerful side.
"We weren't looking for easy games and I kept saying that the only way we get better is by playing [against] the best," Gatland told the BBC.
"Those players that went to New Zealand and [were able to] experience playing against the All Blacks, particularly for some of the youngsters who [will have learned a lot, having] never played at that level and that intensity before.
"One of the things that we found on the tour to New Zealand in the stats was that our tight five were running two kilometers further than they would in any other international match.
"We've got to try and replicate that in training and we want to play the southern hemisphere teams as often as we can, to try and replicate that kind of intensity where we are being pushed to our limits."
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