After taking 19 points out of a possible 20 from pool wins over Fiji, Portugal, Australia and Georgia, Wales now face Argentina in Marseille for the right to march on to the end of the tournament in France.
Whoever wins at Stade de Marseille on Saturday will not only play in the semi-finals, but also stay to play in either the Bronze or main RWC final. Gatland has twice led Wales into the semi-finals but has yet been able to reach the final.
He has filled the No 8 berth vacated by the injured Taulupe Faletau by moving Aaron Wainwright across the back row. Jac Morgan will lead the side wearing No 6, while Tommy Reffell starts at No 7. Dan Biggar is fit to start at outside half, as is Liam Williams at full back.
For Gatland, it will be his 138th game in charge of Wales and his 28th game at the World Cup – four with Ireland and 24 with Wales. It is a tournament he knows better than any other coach in the world.
“The first challenge is to make the knockout stages, that’s the biggest hurdle you want to get over. Then the quarter-final poses its own challenges and pressures because you’re either here to the end of the tournament, or you’re going home on Monday,” said Gatland.
“As a squad, we’re definitely not ready to go home. It’s pressure rugby now, the knockout stages, and you’ve just got embrace it You can’t hide away from it and we’re really excited about the challenge.
“We’re not surprised at all by where we are, and in finishing top of our group. We haven’t picked up too many injuries, which has been a bonus, and we think we are in pretty good shape from both a physical and mental point of view.”
Michael Cheika
Pumas head coach Michael Cheika was quick to install Wales as favourites when he announced his team for the quarter final showdown. He already has one World Cup win over Wales when he was in charge of Australia in 2015, when he enjoyed a 15-6 pool victory at Twickenham
“We know Wales are favourites, and that’s pretty clearly obvious. Everyone’s made that point to us, bar our Argentine supporters,” said Cheika.
“We know that we’re going to have to do something different, something special so that we can be competitive with them. But I’m a huge believer in the team, in our team.
“I love the fellas, they’re always together, they’re a very committed team and I know that they’ll really enjoy this occasion. They’ve felt a bit of that expectation of trying to make it through, and I think they’ll really enjoy Saturday. From the work we’ve done, I feel like they’re ready.”
That 2015 defeat to the Wallabies is one of only two pool defeats Wales have suffered under Gatland. The other was a one-point reverse to the Springboks in the opening game in 2011. It means Gatland has a record of 14 wins in 16 pool matches, as well as two out of three quarter-finals.
“I don’t know where Michael has got that from, he’s probably trying to take some pressure off himself. If you read too much, there was plenty of speculation and people predicting we wouldn’t even get out of the pool,” added Gatland.
“But we’ll embrace that. We haven’t spoken about ‘underdogs or favourites’ tags, we are just going through our own processes and working as hard as we can to make sure our preparation is right.
“The guys have been excellent this week and I don’t think our approach has been any different. As a group of coaches, we don’t over-coach this week or give too much information.
“We purposely had a heavier week last week, the ground we were training on was heavier. We knew we were in the quarter-finals, so it was a bit of a top-up week.
“So, we got through that and beat Georgia. The plan was to shorten things up this week, making things sharper and more intense.
“We have a huge amount of respect for Argentina and we know it is going to be a big challenge for us. You have got to be excited about it, and we are really looking forward to it.
“We’re expecting them to come really hard at us and be physical. I don’t think anything changes, I think the players are well aware of that.
“If we talk about being on the edge mentally, and you can’t be at the top of that every single week, it’s a question of how close you can get to it. We’ve had a couple of games already where we felt we were really on the edge in a positive way, but then a couple of games in which we were off by two or three per cent.
“So, it’s a question of how close we can get to that 100 per cent mental peak – that’s what you’re looking to take into these very big games. I’m expecting that we’ll be right up there from a physical point of view.”
“They’ll have been disappointed in the way they played against England, especially with England getting that red card early on. Since then they’ve been much more pragmatic.
“They are physical, they have a good lineout maul, they drive well, and they carry hard. They have some dangerous and exciting backs, and they a very passionate South American mentally – that’s why they’ve won big games against top southern hemisphere teams in the past.”
