WRU interim chief executive Nigel Walker confirmed that Gatland will stay in place for anotehr four years after last weekend’s quarter-final exit against Argentina. He first took charge in 2008.
“To be successful in international sport you have to have good coaches and good players. To be a good coach you need experience, miles on the clock, understand your craft, get your message across to players and players have to trust you,” said Walker.
“Nothing has changed from what I said in August about Warren – you wouldn’t expect it to. You’ve seen the growth in the squad in a relatively small period of time. Like Warren, I’m really excited what the next four years can bring.”
Last weekend’s quarter-final game in Marseille against the Pumas weas Gatland’s 138th in charge of Wales, and his 24th with Wales at the World Cup. His next assignment will be the non-capped game against the Barbarians at Principality Stadium on Saturday, 4 November.
“I’m excited about what we can start doing as a group. We’ve got an opportunity to bring some youngsters in and build on the cycle to 2027 with players having 50, 60, 70 caps behind them,” said Gatland, who celebrated his 60th birthday in France last month
“There’s an opportunity for us to build some closer relationships with the regions and some of the changes with coaches and personnel there. I’m excited by that because that hasn’t always been the case in the past.
“Often those relationships have been quite fractured, not only from a coaching perspective but the things that were going on between the regions and the union, which we got dragged into.
“We’ve shown we can improve and we’ve got an opportunity to play at a higher level. We want to work with them and keep building confidence.
“It’s going to be incredibly important to us to keep players in Wales, to be part of something with their regions and also play international rugby. We’ve had a few conversations with players whose contracts are up.
“I’m saying to them the best thing for them is to stay in Wales and they can be looked after to get the best possible out of the. In order to do that, we’re progressing and performing at regional level too.
“When you look at it, we’ve got such a small playing base. We’ve got to look at how we bring these youngsters on and develop the likes of Sam Costelow, Taine Plumtree, Jac Morgan – who I thought was outstanding and would have learned a lot from his leadership role in France – and Aaron Wainwright, who is still only 25.
“We’ve got some exciting second-rows and backs coming through. When you look at the potential we’ve got as a nucleus, and some in the 20s as well, we can be really excited at what we can achieve over the next three or four years.”
