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Jamie Roberts: Gatland has found the answer to longstanding question

Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies during the International match between Wales and New Zealand All Blacks at Millennium Stadium on November 22, 2014 in Cardiff, Wales.

Having a legendary player or partnership in a team does not often create too many problems, but one may be that it takes years, and sometimes generations, to find replacements.

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With the bar set so high, fans have an expectation that the players who follow can often fail to live up to despite being good players in their own right.

One such legendary partnership was the combination between Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies in the Welsh, and British and Irish Lions midfield, which Wayne Pivac and Warren Gatland have striven to replace.

Now Roberts himself thinks his former coach may well have found the heirs to the 94-cap and 96-cap inside and outside centres.

Looking at Wales’ squad for their Autumn Nations Series campaign, where they face Fiji, Australia and South Africa, Roberts has identified the Scarlets’ Eddie James and Gloucester’s Max Llewellyn as candidates to occupy the Welsh midfield “for a long time”.

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Speaking to RugbyPass recently, the 37-year-old discussed Wales’ midfield options heading into their autumn campaign.

While he is excited about the prospect of James and Llewellyn playing alongside each other in the future, he is not sure their time is now. Rather, he likes the idea of them getting game time for now alongside the experienced duo of Nick Tompkins and Owen Watkin.

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After all, the pair only have two Wales caps between them, with James, 22, earning his against South Africa earlier this year and Llewellyn, 25, being capped in a 2023 World Cup warm-up. Cobbling together such an inexperienced partnership could prove problematic.

While Gatland experimented with Mason Grady at inside centre against Australia in the summer, the same move he made with Roberts over a decade ago, the former Lion is not convinced by the switch, and believes the 117kg back is better suited on the wing.

“I’m hugely excited by the promise of Eddie James and Max Llewellyn,” TNT Sports pundit Roberts told RugbyPass. “They’re two players who’ve got all the ingredients to be proper Test rugby players.

“Potentially not together, but I’d love to see them start a game in November. Max has played quite a lot at 13, Eddie more at 12, but whether it’s the right time to start them together, I’m not quite sure. But finding that partnership for Wales over the next couple of seasons is going to prove absolutely pivotal to the fortunes of this side.

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“If they work well together, why not? They’ve got to start somewhere, but we know we’ve got the experience of Owen [Watkin] and Nick Tompkins to call upon if needed. I think these two lads could be mainstays in the Welsh squad for a long time.

“Around the young centres, whether that’s Warren kind of resigning himself to the fact that playing Mason [Grady] at 12 is not going to happen moving forward. Personally, I think we should be on the wing. We’ve learned over the last period that his best position isn’t 12, I think he’s aware.”

A bigger conundrum for Gatland than solving the midfield this November is working out how to win a Test. Wales are yet to register a Test win in 2024, but Roberts is buoyant and believes his countrymen should target two wins from three over the next month.

“World champion Springboks are going to be a huge ask, but get enough momentum from the first two games, never say never,” Roberts said.

“Where this Wales side is at the minute, Fiji and Australia games, they should be targeting to win. I think they’ve got the ingredients to do it. They’ve got a young group of players who’ve gone through a really steep learning curve over the last 12 months against some very challenging backdrops in Welsh rugby- at club and Test level. But they would have learned a huge amount.

“They have some experience coming back, the likes of Jac Morgan, Tomos Williams were missed in the summer, really, really missed because they are two players that can really transform this side.

“Having Jac Morgan back is huge, he is truly one of our world-class players when he plays to his potential and is fully fit and it’s great to see him showing that early-season form. When you have players like that, they just give their side an extra five, ten per cent and give confidence to other players as well, which is all Wales need to go from turning tight losses into victories.

“I’ve all the reasons to be pretty optimistic about it, we’ve got a great opportunity to get back to winning ways and that’s what the lads are chasing out there.

“They’re chasing that feeling being in the changing room and having been there myself, in Welsh sides that won things and then lost, it’s that feeling of winning again and knowing you’ve put in a performance worthy of winning a Test match and they’ve got a great opportunity to do it. I think there will be a spring in their step off the back of early season form, I think a lot of players are showing some really good form.”

Related

Every match of 2024 Autumn Nations Series is exclusively live on TNT Sports and discovery+ Watch The Autumn Nations Rugby Show, free-to-air on Quest every Thursday at 10pm

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fl 1 hour ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

“He won a ECL and a domestic treble at the beginning of his career.”

He won 2 ECLs at the beginning of his career (2009, 2011). Since then he’s won 1 in 15 years.


“He then won 3 leagues on the bounce later in his career”

He won 3 leagues on the bounce at the start of his career too - (2009, 2010, 2011).


If we’re judging him by champions league wins, he peaked in his late 30s, early 40s. If we’re judging him by domestic titles he’s stayed pretty consistent over his career. If we’re judging him by overall win rate he peaked at Bayern, and was better at Barcelona than at City. So no, he hasn’t gotten better by every measure.


“You mentioned coaches were older around the mid-2010’s compared to the mid-2000’s. Robson was well above the average age you’ve given for those periods even in the 90’s when in his pomp.”

Robson was 63-64 when he was at Barcelona, so he wasn’t very old. But yeah, he was slightly above the average age of 60 I gave for the top 4 premier league coaches in 2015, and quite a bit above the averages for 2005 and 2025.


“Also, comparing coaches - and their experiences, achievements - at different ages is unstable. It’s not a valid way to compare and tends to torpedo your own logic when you do compare them on equal terms. I can see why you don’t like doing it.”

Well my logic certainly hasn’t been torpedoed. Currently the most successful premier league coaches right now are younger than they were ten years ago. You can throw all the nuance at it that you want, but that fact won’t change. It’s not even clear what comparing managers “on equal terms” would even mean, or why it would be relevant to anything I’ve said.


“You still haven’t answered why Kiss could be a risker appointment?”

Because I’ve been talking to you about football managers. If you want to change the subject then great - I care a lot more about rugby than I do football.

But wrt Kiss, I don’t agree that 25 years experience is actually that useful, given what a different sport rugby was 25 years ago. Obviously in theory more experience can never be a bad thing, but I think 10 years of coaching experience is actually more than enough these days. Erasmus had been a coach for 13 years when he got the SA top job. Andy Farrell had been a coach for 9 when he got the Ireland job. I don’t think anyone would say that either of them were lacking in experience.


Now - what about coaches who do have 25+ years experience? The clearest example of that would be Eddie Jones, who started coaching 31 years ago. He did pretty well everywhere he worked until around 2021 (when he was 61), when results with England hit a sharp decline. He similarly oversaw a terrible run with Australia, and currently isn’t doing a great job with Japan.

Another example is Warren Gatland, who also started coaching full-time 31 years ago, after 5 years as a player-coach. Gatland did pretty well everywhere he went until 2020 (when he was 56), when he did a relatively poor job with the Chiefs, before doing a pretty poor job with the Lions, and then overseeing a genuine disaster with Wales. There are very few other examples, as most coaches retire or step back into lesser roles when they enter their 60s. Mick Byrne actually has 34 years experience in coaching (but only 23 years coaching in rugby) and at 66 he’s the oldest coach of a top 10 side, and he’s actually doing really well. He goes to show that you can continue to be a good coach well into your 60s, but he seems like an outlier.


So the point is - right now, Les Kiss looks like a pretty reliable option, but 5 years ago so did Eddie Jones and Warren Gatland before they went on to prove that coaches often decline as they get older. If Australia want Kiss as a short term appointment to take over after Schmidt leaves in the summer, I don’t think that would be a terrible idea - but NB wanted Kiss as a long term appointment starting in 2027! That’s a massive risk, given the chance that his aptitude will begin to decline.


Its kind of analagous to how players decline. We know (for example) that a fly-half can still be world class at 38, but we also know that most fly-halves peak in their mid-to-late 20s, so it is generally considered a risk to build your game plan around someone much older than that.

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AlanCriner 1 hour ago
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AlanCriner 1 hour ago
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Despite my repeated attempts to contact the account manager who initially approached me on Telegram, I was met with silence. They refused to provide any explanation or information, and I was locked out of my account on their website. The authorities were unable to assist me, as the scammers were untraceable.

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NB 3 hours ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

https://www.london.edu/think/how-claudio-ranieri-transformed-leicester-city


He jts knew how to use that deep well of knowledge accumulate over many years of management. A true Moneyball story!

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