Warren Gatland has finally learnt to get out of the way – will Michael Cheika take note?

When asked about what his greatest personal achievement in coaching was, Sir Graham Henry said it lay in abandoning his autocratic style in favour of something more democratic – what is now termed ‘consensus coaching’ between coaches and players.

“I was pretty authoritarian. But it moved on after 2004, to a group of people trying to do something together, rather than two separate groups, one of coaches and another of players,” he said in Phil Larder’s book The Iron Curtain: My rugby journey from league to union.

“Now it’s much more consensus.”

Henry went on to say that after he had constructed the coaching framework, he then “stepped out of the way” and let the players get on with implementing it.

Stepping out of the way could be described as the biggest barrier any coach faces in the course of his career, especially at the elite level.

It takes different forms for different coaches, but all at some point have to front up to, and overcome their own built-in tendencies – whether they are technical, or psychological, or both.

Michael Cheika is fast approaching this advanced stage of the coaching process. He already has some outstanding individual achievements on his Wallaby CV – a Rugby Championship win and a World Cup final appearance in 2015, plus a couple of victories over the All Blacks to boot.

He has successfully introduced knowledge from outside the Australian box in the shape of Argentine Mario Ledesma and, more latterly, ex-All Black coach Mick Byrne.

He has a feeling for the ‘Australian way’ of playing and he has not been afraid to adopt new and innovative systems in order to put that concept on the field.

On the negative side of the ledger, his wins stand at an average 55 per cent and he has a poor overall record against the three sides ranked above Australia on the World Rugby ladder – New Zealand, Ireland and England (three wins out of 18 attempts, or 17 per cent).

He has demonstrated a lack of tactical flexibility, most recently in the Spring tour loss to Scotland, after the Wallabies had a player sent off at the end of the first half. He’s also displayed a streak of stubbornness in selection, which has steadily reduced, rather than increased, competition in the two key halfback positions.

You sense that the biggest challenge of Cheika’s coaching career still lies ahead of him, as it does with Ireland coach Joe Schmidt.

Schmidt has long been one of the most outstanding intellects in the game, and he now has a plethora of excellent young talent to work with, spilling out of the academies in the Irish provinces and over the doorstep of the national squad like a flood tide.

Schmidt has a tremendous eye for detail, his due diligence in the preparation for games is deep and far-reaching, and he inspires loyalty from his players.

But despite all of his positive qualities, a nagging doubt remains as it whether he has truly ‘stepped out of his own way’ as a coach.

Schmidt’s playing structures are lucid and effective, but during my time with England we felt there was a marked drop-off in Ireland’s performance when they were forced out to play outside of those structures.

Wales coach Warren Gatland has meanwhile often been accused of being too conservative and rigid in his approach. The phrase ‘Warrenball’ has been deployed often enough as a derogatory catch-all to become the itch Gatland can never quite scratch.

Warren Gatland (Mike Egerton/PA Wire)

Up until the most recnet World Cup, Wales fielded a huge back-line. Except for Leigh Halfpenny, every one of their outside backs (typically George North and Alex Cuthbert on the wings, and Jonathan Davies and Jamie Roberts in the centres) were well over 105 kilos. Three of those four had the bulk and height to have played in the back five forwards in a previous era.

Gatland’s Wales were punishingly physical and direct in both attack and defence. The forwards ran off the No.9 same-way across the field until one side of the pitch was exhausted, then the opponent could look forward to making one-on-one tackles on those massive backs when play came back the other way.

It was simple, it wasn’t particularly Welsh, and it never bothered the Southern Hemisphere big three too much.

But a new model Wales dominated the Six Nations between 2008 and 2013.

Around the time of Wales’ summer tour to New Zealand in 2016, a change clicked and the obsession with size and physicality began to diminish. The biggest back of them all, centre Jamie Roberts, was omitted first from the British and Irish Lions party to tour New Zealand in the summer of 2017, and then from the Welsh squad for the international series a couple of months later.

Maybe it was the spectre of his lack of success with Wales against the big Southern Hemisphere trio (which still stands at a meagre three wins out of 33 attempts), and a potential humiliation on the cards touring his homeland with the Lions which brought Gatland’s coaching career to a happy crisis.

Whatever it was, Gatland started to act against his own acknowledged tendencies and step out of his own way.

The Welsh back-line which played against Scotland on Saturday did not have one body anywhere near 105 kilos, let alone 110-kilo giants like North and Roberts.

Even lacking seasoned international operators like Lions man of the series Davies, North and halfbacks Rhys Webb and Dan Biggar behind, as well as Lions captain Sam Warburton up front, Wales were far too good for a confident Scotland side feeding off their own improvement over the past 12 months.

It is at this point that a more detailed comparison between Schmidt’s Ireland and Gatland’s new Wales is most revealing.

Schmidt’s emphasis on structure often means that Ireland control the ball for long periods.

Against France on Saturday evening, the official stats show that they made 250 passes and built a colossal 166 rucks – but only six of those passes were offloads (2.4 per cent), and there were no clean breaks created in the process.

Wales, by contrast, made 61 fewer passes and built 80 fewer rucks (roughly half the number created by Ireland), but made more than twice as many offloads (13, or 6.9 per cent of their total passes) and broke the line 18 times.

Where Wales attacked eight times from within their own half (with six breaks resulting), the Irish only attacked from their own end once, on the final 41-phase sequence of play leading to Johnny Sexton’s fantastic, game-winning drop-goal.

The key to Gatland’s transformation lies in the new expectation of his tight five. Where the power of their work at set-piece and carrying ball straight ahead off nine had been primary requirements, now they are required to handle the ball and play effectively in space.

Let’s examine what this means in practice. Here Wales have moved the ball along their back-line from inside their own 22, so the next phase will have to involve their forwards:

Both the Welsh centres plus their left wing have been consumed in the ruck, while fullback Halfpenny is standing inside first receiver Rhys Patchell.

In the old Gatland era, there would be a pod of three forwards ready to take the ball up into contact off the pass from the scrum-half, and that process would then be repeated all the way across field to the right sideline.

But in the new version, there are six forwards standing outside first receiver, and looking to run into gaps rather than take contact:

#6 Aaron Shingler, #4 Cory Hill, #1 Rob Evans and #5 Alun Wyn Jones are all looking to pass the ball and keep play alive, and a superb try is only spoiled at the last with the offload from Jones falling at Steff Evans’ feet.

The forwards were consistently positioned on the end of the second pass and looking to use ‘quick hands’ to hit soft spots in the Scotland defence. The following example is an all-in-one transfer by tight-head prop Samson Lee, not known for ball handling:

The new set of requirements have had the effect of sending grizzled veteran ‘grunt’ Jones backs to his heady days as a mobile second row-blindside flank hybrid, and he is enjoying a new lease of life:

On this occasion, Jones delivers a good pass, and the fault lies in Gareth Anscombe’s failure to take it. There is a sense of new-found confidence in the Welsh tight forwards as effective pieces in the attacking chess game.

Replacement prop Wyn Jones pulls the ball back for Patchell, who releases second row Hill outside him:

Hill is able to sell the last Scotland defender on a beautiful dummy before sending the ball out to wing Josh Adams near the right touch. Hill also enjoyed a pivotal role in Wales’ second try, connecting the forward and back lines together accurately (1:50 on the video).

The connectivity between backs and forwards was strong throughout the game, in this instance with #7 Josh Navidi giving the offload and Wyn Jones picking the ball from Anscombe up off his toes before (almost) converting the chance:

The icing on the cake was the final try scored by left wing Evans, after terrific preparatory work by Shingler (cut and offload) and Navidi (long pass) – see 3:45 on the highlight reel.

Summary
However talented you are in your coaching capacity as a teacher, tactician or man-manager (and all of Cheika, Schmidt and Gatland are prodigiously talented in at least one of those areas), there comes a time where you have to undo everything you think you know and rebuild yourself from new.

Graham Henry had to do it, Eddie Jones had to do it, and Warren Gatland is in the middle of the process. The days of Warrenball are gone and its mantra of ‘earning the right the go wide’ (by bashing the opponent physically first) is dead.

You earn the right to go wide principally by virtue of the skill-sets and accuracy of your tight forwards in the handling game, as the All Blacks have known for years.

It is a catch-up process for most teams in the Northern Hemisphere. To his credit, Warren Gatland is stepping out of his own way and rebuilding his coaching image, and it may yet give him a shot at the role (coach of New Zealand) that he probably covets the most.

That process still lies ahead for both Joe Schmidt and Michael Cheika, but it will be necessary if they want to achieve all that they wish for in the world of elite rugby.