Jenkins sticks with best of welsh

Robin McBryde (responsible for set piece), Rowland Phillips (defence coach) and Neil Jenkins (kicking coach) will continue in their technical coaching roles with the national team after their successful trip to Argentina with Jenkins and attack coach Nigel Davies last summer.
WRU Chief Executive, Steve Lewis has now successfully completed negotiations with all parties and has got the group that Jenkins has put together to put pen to paper and sign up for what is going to be an amazing 18 months of international rugby.
“I’m delighted that Robin, Rowland and Neil are able to commit themselves fully to what is going to be an incredibly demanding period that will see Wales play a minimum of 23 games, and hopefully two or three more,” said Jenkins.
“The players were all very comfortable with the three of them during the tour to Argentina and they have all made excellent contributions to squad sessions since we returned. It is great that we now have an all-Welsh coaching team, although that was never a pre-requisite in my mind – we have selected the best people possible to prepare the Welsh team for the 2007 Rugby World Cup.”
Wales face Australia, the Pacific Islands, Canada and New Zealand in next month’s Invesco Perpetual Series at the Millennium Stadium and will play two games at home, against England and Ireland, in the 2007 RBS Six Nations Championship. After that there are two Tests scheduled for the summer tour to Australia and three Rugby World Cup warm-up matches against England (away), Argentina and France (both home) next August.
At the 2007 Rugby World Cup Jenkins’ men will face Australia, Fiji, Canada and the team that emerges on top from the final Asian qualifying tournament in Colombo at the end of next month, involving Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, in their Pool. If they finish in the top two they will be guaranteed a quarter-final place.
Once the Rugby World Cup is over, there will be three home games to look forward to in the 2008 RBS Six Nations Championship.
All three members of Jenkins’ ‘Technical Team’ are ex-internationals and their appointments takes to nine the number of the national management team who have represented Wales – Jenkins himself, who played for Wales against Japan in an uncapped match in Tokyo in 1975, his attack coach Nigel Davies (29 caps), team manager Alan Phillips (18 caps, one Lions tour), the technical team of McBryde (37 caps, one Lions tour), Phillips (10 caps) and Jenkins (87 caps, two Lions tours), fitness coach Mark Bennett (3 caps), physiotherapist Mark Davies (3 caps) and analyst Alun Carter (2 caps).
“I am delighted Gareth has opted for a home grown group to take Wales into next year’s Rugby World Cup,” said WRU chief executive Steve Lewis.
“One reason for the formal announcement has come later than hoped is because we wanted to sort out exactly how we split the time and energies of the three technical coaches. Neil and Robin will carry on working within the wider High Performance Unit as national skills coaches to our academy players while Rowland is head coach at Neath. All three coaches will continue to have a coaching role within the international age grade structure, and this indicates just how close the relationship now is between the national squad and the rest of our High Performance group.
“All three coaches have continued to work with Gareth and the players since the summer tour and will be fully committed to their national roles. We feel we have found the right balance in our working structure for this important year and beyond.”
Another change behind the scenes will see Alun Carter’s technical analysis team become full-time members of the WRU staff. This means their work will broaden out from the national squad to working with all age grade teams and academies.

Wales matches ahead of RWC 2007

INVESCO PERPETUAL SERIES 2006
Wales v Australia November 4
Wales v Pacific Islanders November 11
Wales v Canada November 17
Wales v New Zealand November 25

RBS SIX NATIONS 2007
Wales v Ireland February 4th
Scotland v Wales February 10th
France v Wales February 24th
Italy v Wales March 10th
Wales v England March 17th

SUMMER TOUR 2007
Australia v Wales Test 1 May 26th
Australia v Wales Test 2 June 2nd

INVESCO PERPETUAL SERIES 2007
England v Wales (Twickenham) August 4th
Wales v Argentina (Millennium Stadium) August 18th
Wales v France (Millennium Stadium) August 25th