Wales are struggling to keep some of their leading players in the country but their coaching team is set to be in place for a third successive World Cup after Shaun Edwards, who had been linked with a move back to his native England, signed a new four-year contract.
Edwards, Wales’s defence coach since the start of 2008, was a free agent after 30 November. Although the Welsh Rugby Union was in talks with him there were fears England’s new head coach, Eddie Jones, would make an approach. That did not happen and Edwards has joined the Wales head coach Warren Gatland in committing himself until after the 2019 World Cup in Japan.
Gatland signed a new contract last year but he was linked with the job of the England head coach following Stuart Lancaster’s departure last month. The Rugby Football Union went for the former Australia and Japan coach Jones, saying he was the first choice from the start, but it also did not want to undermine the close working relationship it has developed with the WRU in recent years.
Edwards is highly rated by the Wales squad for his knowledge, drive and tendency to push them to their limits. The men in red had the best defensive record in the World Cup despite being drawn in the toughest pool with the hosts, England, and Australia. They shut out the Wallabies and restricted South Africa to one try seven minutes before the end of the quarter-final.
Wales’s failure to emulate their 2011 achievement, when they reached the semi-finals before losing to France by a point having played the final hour with 14 men, led to calls for Gatland to shake up a coaching team that had been in place for nearly eight years. His response was that he felt there was no obvious need for change and having retained Edwards, his attention will turn to the attack coach, Rob Howley, and the forwards coach, Robin McBryde, whose contracts end next summer.
“I am delighted to have signed through to 2019,” said Edwards. “Warren has assembled a great team off the field and it is fantastic to work alongside such a dedicated and talented group of players and to be part of a strong management team. My way has always been to focus on the next match and the next competition, which is the Six Nations.”
Edwards’s decision was welcome relief for the WRU at the end of a testing week in which the Newport Gwent Dragons and Wales No8, Taulupe Faletau, decided to join Bath next season after talks over a dual contract broke down. The union also withdrew an offer to the centre Scott Williams after he became the subject of a bidding war between his regions, the Scarlets and Ospreys, that took him out of the governing body’s price range.
“It is extremely positive for the WRU and the national squad to announce we have secured Shaun’s services for another four years,” said the WRU chief executive, Martyn Phillips. “Under Warren the national squad has assembled an outstanding management team and Shaun is a vital part of it. Shaun has shown great loyalty to Wales since he came into the role back in 2008 and as the squad prepare for their next campaign and looking further ahead to the next four-year cycle it is important they have the structure and resources in place.” There were times last season when Edwards appeared to be saying his farewells to Wales, once holding an impromptu media conference to talk about his future which caused alarm in the corridors of power. There were suggestions his relationship with Gatland, which had started the previous decade when they teamed up at Wasps and delivered trophy after trophy, had been fractured by his omission from the Lions’ management team in Australia in 2013, but the pair continued to meet regularly outside the national training base in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Wales have learned Edwards is not someone who can be pushed and makes decisions in his own time. There is no doubt a return to England appealed to him but he has also developed a close bond with the Wales players, a number of whom said after the World Cup they wanted him to stay on.
The Harlequins debut of the Lions centre Jamie Roberts, planned to be against Calvisano in the Challenge Cup at the Stoop next weekend, may have to be put back after the 28-year-old suffered a dead leg during Cambridge University’s 12-6 defeat by Oxford University in the Varsity match and had to be replaced at half-time.
