No sooner had Warren Gatland guided Wales to the threshold of the third grand slam of his tenure than he hinted he might not be done with the Six Nations just yet, writes Michael Aylwin. After an 18-11 win over Scotland at Murrayfield, Wales return now to Cardiff to face Ireland in the final round.
“There is no doubt there will be emotion next week,” he said. “It’ll be my last Six Nations game.” Cue Pinteresque pause. “For Wales.”
The room dissolved into laughter, with Alun Wyn Jones at the top table edging away from him, as Gatland made light of it. “I’m not going to go there,” he hastily added, before setting up the Six Nations’ latest weekend of high drama.
“I think it’s Paddy’s Day next week, so the Irish will be chomping at the bit as well. It’s going to be a great occasion. You won’t be able to get a ticket anywhere. And the competition’s still open. We want to win this championship, and the only way we can do that now is by getting the grand slam. If we do that, I can promise you there will be some pretty serious celebrations afterwards.”
Wales had been put through quite the defensive set, with Scotland coming at them from all angles in the second half. Gatland paid tribute to his players after the high emotion earlier in the week when a restructure of the domestic game in Wales was subject to announcement and counter-announcement.
“This is a fantastic group of men,” he said. “They’re pretty close. There’s no doubt that Monday and Tuesday has had an impact on the players. We didn’t train very well on Tuesday, so we had to back up on Thursday and Friday to tidy things up. There’s obviously a lot of emotion involved with everyone. I take my hats off to them. I’m not sure in the past we’d have had the mental strength to keep Scotland out but these guys are finding ways to do that.”
One of those ways was to concede penalties against Scotland’s attempts to drive a series of attacking lineouts over the line. Gregor Townsend felt Scotland should have had more reward. “Five penalties in their 22 [during the second-half siege],” said Townsend, “to not get anything else from that seems as if their ill discipline was rewarded and our pressure wasn’t. If teams are giving away penalties close to their own tryline through cynical play, you expect that pressure to lead to yellow cards. That’s normal rugby.”
Scotland go south from here as well, to Twickenham, where their losing streak stretches back, famously, to 1983. “If we build on that performance we can be a match for any team in the world. We know our record at Twickenham, but records are there to be broken.”
