Peter Bills: Three words of warning from Gatland
Thursday June 24 2010
Pace, tempo, intensity... Those three words kept buzzing around my head this week, and they ought to have filled the mind of every northern hemisphere rugby player and critic.
They were spoken by Welsh coach Warren Gatland -- a New Zealander, of course -- and they were directed at his own players after their 42-9 hammering by the All Blacks in Dunedin last weekend.
Gatland understands rugby in the southern hemisphere intrinsically. He was brought up in that harshest of proving grounds, New Zealand, and once you have come through that system, you never forget the lessons you have learned.
If you have never met him, Warren Gatland is the stereotypical Kiwi. He tells it as it is, doesn't suffer fools gladly and if you can't handle the bluntness of the facts, then that's your problem. I like New Zealanders for those traits. You know where you are with them.
However, the point is, players from this part of the world continue to struggle with those expectations. Every year, around this time, they travel to the southern hemisphere and trot out to meet the locals in their own backyard. They think they're prepared and ready, but they're not.
It is unfair on them for they are unaccustomed to the intense demands of the game in the southern hemisphere.
They may be fit, may even be in form, but what they are seldom ready for are Gatland's three words -- the pace, tempo and intensity of the game.
Ireland were thrashed in New Plymouth, Wales likewise in Dunedin -- both against the All Blacks. England were abject in their first test against Australia in Perth and the French were an embarrassment in Cape Town against South Africa.
True, England turned it around inside seven days against the Wallabies, but they won because Matt Giteau missed a penalty from 18 metres in front of the posts with seven minutes left. So, perhaps we shouldn't be breaking open the Bollinger just yet.
However, Scotland demonstrated commendable fortitude to win the Test series 2-0 in Argentina -- never an easy task. We must hope Ireland are equally improved against the Australians this weekend in Brisbane... but I wonder. For when it comes to confronting the southern hemisphere countries on their own turf, the record of the northern hemisphere nations is abysmal.
There is a reason for that and it is not just fatigue -- an inevitable consequence of a long season at this time of the year.
None of the countries from the Six Nations Championship ever have to face the sustained pressure, physicality, speed and intensity of play from their opponents in this part of the world. Yes, a Munster v Leinster game can be tough as hell, but it seldom contains the type of pressure and pace over 80 minutes which is the norm south of the equator.
Likewise, games in the Guinness Premiership are tough, but in a far slower, more grinding way than is the habit across the southern hemisphere. Mistakes in this part of the world very often go unpunished, but in the southern hemisphere, the omnipresent, clinical approach virtually guarantees that errors are always capitalised upon.
Intensity
It is this kind of intensity that Gatland was talking about last week. And until it is matched in northern hemisphere rugby, and there is little sign of that at present, then the likelihood is that southern hemisphere hegemony will continue apace.
Next week I will board a plane and, after an interminably long flight, tumble out at Auckland. There, three days later, I expect to see the most intense rugby match of the year so far -- New Zealand against South Africa, the opening match of this year's Tri Nations Championship.
It will be fast, furious and physical -- probably brutal. Players will have microseconds to make a decision with ball in hand before they are hit, but they cannot stay down for long; their presence is required in the very next phase of play.
Little chance for the backs to take a breather, as there are few examples of the slow, laboured kind of forward rumbling that we see in the northern hemisphere. Down south, they attack through all phases, constantly, and maintain the intensity and pace of those assaults. There is no respite.
Until the northern hemisphere players accustom themselves to such a style of game, it is hard to see how they can grasp Gatland's three little words.
- Peter Bills
Irish Independent
