‘This is everyone’s team. We’re just the lucky ones’

THE CONSENSUS since Warren Gatland made those comments at the Welsh team announcement was that he had two motivations in mind — primarily to get into the heads, hearts and minds of the Irish and to take the pressure off his own players.

In modern-day sports parlance, it’s “mind games” and that’s fine provided you know what you are doing. In Cardiff last night, the widespread view among Welsh and Irish alike was that Gatland had made a total ass of himself and that no amount of wriggling would get him off the hook. The ironic thing about it is he seems to have upset more Welsh people than Irish with his witless remarks.

Yesterday, embarrassed locals were going out of their way to distance themselves from remarks such as “the Welsh players dislike the Irish team more than any other” while the Western Mail commented: “Everyone knows full the Welsh don’t dislike the Irish. We have the utmost respect for our Celtic neighbours, as people and as a rugby-playing nation, and we know full well those sentiments are plentiful in return. If we have to concede the Six Nations title, then there isn’t a better nation we could hand the trophy over to.”