Rugby: Rugby-Tournament veteran Gatland has Wales on the right path

NICE, France (Reuters) – For Wales, a tense finish against Fiji and spirited showing from Portugal may have set hearts fluttering but they have come away with 10 points from their opening two World Cup Pool C games to make a perfect start in their bid for a quarter-final place.

There were many questions around the team going into the tournament. Should coach Warren Gatland have come back for a second spell in charge? Is there enough experience in the squad? Was it a risk to pin hopes on players with a poor injury record?

It has not been plain sailing by any stretch of the imagination but Gatland, in his record fifth World Cup as a coach, has guided Wales to two bonus-point wins with a crunch game against Australia to come on Sept. 24.

“If someone said you’d have 10 points from the first two games, we’d be happy with that,” Gatland said in the wake of Saturday’s battling 28-8 win over Portugal in Nice.

In both matches Wales have been under pressure but found a way to win – first when they repelled a late rally from Fiji for a 32-26 success and then with a much-changed side that secured their bonus point with the final play against the Portuguese.

There has not yet been polish in their performances and on Saturday they battled badly with their lineout and were careless with ball in hand, which will be major concerns for Gatland.

But these experiences of ‘winning ugly’ could be invaluable to the young group should they make the knockout stages.

“As a group of players it’s a learning experience,” Gatland said. “You can’t coach experience. You have got to sometimes go through that and learn that as players.

“It took us a number of years in my previous reign with Wales. We had been in positions in tight matches and conceded and lost games in the last few minutes.”

Gatland celebrates his 60th birthday on Sunday, but will no doubt be glued to the Pool C tussle between Australia and Fiji in Saint-Etienne.

A win for the Wallabies will make Wales odds-on to qualify for the quarter-finals, while a Fiji victory would leave them in a vulnerable position.

But, for now, Gatland’s young group have done all they can and perhaps some of the doom and gloom around the squad will lift.

(Reporting by Nick Said; Editing by Ken Ferris)