Gatland spells it out to players

WARREN GATLAND delivered a blunt warning yesterday that any player who pursues a club career outside Wales will be putting his international future at grave risk.

Gatland’s first major act as the new Wales head coach has been to propose a radical new selection policy, designed to keep the best Welsh talent playing in the principality.

The approach is similar to that employed by Gatland’s native New Zealand, who do not consider any overseas-based player for the All Blacks. European employment law is understood to have prohibited Wales from replicating that stance completely but the motivation is essentially same.