France host Wales in the opening game of the 2025 championship at Stade de France on Friday 31st January before Wales head to Rome where they will play Italy at Stadio Olimpicio eight days later.
“Everyone is talking about it being challenging, but for us we need to show an improvement in performance. The autumn was tough because we were playing against teams that had been together for three months and who had campaigns behind them as well,” said Gatland who is set to coach Wales for the 150th time in Paris.
“We’re not looking further than the first two games. We’ve got to go to France, who will be tough and physical and have a huge amount of strength in depth, and then the game in Italy is going to be important as well.”
Wales go into the opening round of the Six Nations looking to snap their losing streak with Wales’ head coach admitting the lack of results has ‘been challenging.’
“I’m not hiding away from that fact,” he said. “It has been tough. There has been a fair amount of criticism which is completely understandable when you are dealing with professional rugby. It’s all about performance and results.
“You do question yourself and think about the things you could implement to improve things and make a difference. It is also about trying to strike a balance between not making radical changes and finding some tweaks to improve things.
“For me, it’s also about looking back historically and asking why have we been successful in the past. What thing is it that I did that made those teams that won trophies in the past so successful?
“It’s about making sure you don’t go away from some of the philosophies that have made you successful with teams. Sometimes you can lose a little bit of that. You also have to trust your own instincts and experience.”
“The next couple of weeks will be about the messaging to the team and creating that self-belief and confidence about going to Paris. We know it’s going to be a challenge. We’ll be trying to take some pointers from last year.
“They’re going to have limited preparation time as well and have got a few injuries. If we can go out there, play well and get a little bit of luck…we’ve also got a bit of experience coming back into the squad which is hopefully a positive in terms of giving us some confidence.”
