THE VISIT OF Warren Gatland’s Wales to Dublin this week has allowed Simon Easterby take a trip down memory lane.
Easterby was there when Gatland rolled the dice as Ireland head coach back in 2000. Having been thumped 50-18 away to England in the opening round of the Six Nations, Gatland reacted by handing out five new caps for the following home game against Scotland. A revamped Ireland romped to a 44-22 success and those five fresh faces turned out to be handy Test players.
Speaking in Abbotstown yesterday, Ireland defence coach Easerby reflected on the day where he joined Ronan O’Gara, Peter Stringer, John Hayes and Shane Horgan in stepping onto the Test stage for the first time, and how Gatland empowered the group to rise to the occasion.
“Willie Bennett showed me the cutting of a picture of the five of us this week,” he said.
“Twenty-four years ago, my memory might be a little vague on what happened that week but Warren was very good, still is, at giving players confidence to go out and be the best version of themselves. Like a lot of the best coaches are.
He’s made a brilliant career out of that, I think that’s what my memory would be: him saying ‘go out, you’re here for a reason. Don’t be overawed by it, put in a performance.’
“He wouldn’t say a huge amount, Warren, he is a man of few words at times and when he does speak, players do respond to it.”
That’s exactly why Easterby is wary of the threat Gatland’s new-look Wales pose this weekend, even though Andy Farrell’s men are heavy favourites to make it three wins from three when they take on a Wales side who lost to Scotland and England in their opening two fixtures.
Having shred a wealth of Test experience, Gatland will bring a young, inexperienced team to Dublin. There are just 499 caps in the starting 15 he named yesterday and a Wales win at Aviva Stadium this weekend would represent a major shock, but the Six Nations, and Gatland in particular, can always throw up a surprise.
“History has proved it… they bombed out of the World Cup in 2007 before the quarter-finals, then they go and win the Grand Slam a year after,” Easterby said.
“There’s a lot of crap going on in [Welsh] regional rugby and it’s tough for clubs, it’s tough for individuals within the clubs, not just players but for all the backroom people affiliated to the different clubs who have worked over the years to sustain regional rugby.
“Supporters as well have kind of suffered a bit, but when they get into Welsh camp it’s been proven time and again they have a huge amount of belief in what they’re doing when they put on a Welsh red jersey.
“It showed really in the Scotland game at home – 27-0 down, lots of reasons why they’re 27-0 down, but they go back and nearly win the game. They go to Twickenham and arguably should have won the game.
When they go into Welsh camp they know how to prepare and know how to make a difference, the coaching group are part of that, but the players are different beasts when they put on that red jersey; they understand what it is to represent their country, as our guys do as well.
“A huge amount of support for our team and the players feel it, the Welsh are the same; they’re a passionate people, they just want to see the players go out and give everything. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be a success, but a performance and you’ll always get that from a Welsh team.”
Ireland’s last outing was a highly encouraging one from Easterby’s point of view, with Farrell’s team niling Italy in a 36-0 rout – representing the first time Ireland kept an opponent scoreless in the Five or Six Nations since 1987.
“I think it’s in context. We took away their platform at set-piece. The line-out and the scrum defence were excellent and if you do that to any team it’s always going to be difficult to attack and to get any foothold in the game,” Easterby said.
“Our discipline was pretty good. Again, we didn’t give them access to go to the corner. I think maybe 15 metres out from our tryline was the closest they got to our tryline.
“So, it’s really pleasing the way that the forwards went in terms of their set-piece work. The plan that Paulie [O'Connell] and Fogs [John Fogarty] put in place for defending against Italy and then the connections that we had as a backline and a team to stop them from getting any momentum, that was pretty pleasing.
“But we also know we have to keep getting better. On another day we might have conceded. It’s important that we don’t get too far ahead of ourselves. It’s always nice and it doesn’t happen very often and it’s important that the players acknowledge it was really good, but we also acknowledge that we have to get better.”
