Coming soon to the home of rugby on television, Sky Sports BT Sport BBC ITV, it’s the latest innovative rugby documentary: ‘Coach Swap’. The two hour special will be shown on the eve of the World Cup and will, of course, be hosted by John Inverdale.
For filming, Warren Gatland spent time with the England squad at Pennyhill park, whilst Stuart Lancaster made his way across the bridge to the Vale of Glamorgan to meet up with the Welsh lads. We were granted exclusive access to see first hand how both camps got on with a new coach.
We arrive at the Vale Resort to see Stuart Lancaster prowling the facilities with a panicked look on his face. It’s only 8:45 a.m. Even though his first training session is due to start in 15 minutes, I manage to get a quick word with Bomber.
I ask why he’s all flustered. “I can’t find any rugby balls!” he exclaims. “They must be hidden somewhere, we were going to go over basics with a few passing drills this morning”. A field producer approaches and whispers to Lancaster that Warren Gatland has banned all rugby balls from the facility and that the Welsh squad are to only work on strength and conditioning. Lancaster leaves confused, muttering something about not being able to run rugby league-style backs moves.
After running a few bleep tests and hill sprints in the morning, Lancaster comes back to the hotel to do a piece for the camera with Invers. He explains how he got off to a bad start with the lads when handing out the jerseys by assigning Jamie Roberts and George North to the forwards, explaining sheepishly how he naturally assumed they played in the row after seeing them up-close. He then left to send Jack Nowell and George Ford a text telling them to drop the rugby balls and get in the gym.
It did seem Stuart had enjoyed the day with the Welsh squad though. Lancaster, known for his positive and team-centric philosophy, has arranged a guest speaker. The Welsh lads look excited. Who could it be? Gareth Edwards explaining how the Welsh dominated the rugby world in the 70s? Or perhaps the inspirational story of former rugby player Henry Fraser? The room goes a little cold when Lancaster announces that the guest speaker is his good friend Brendan Rodgers.
Brendan goes on to talk about ‘working for the group’, ‘the progress of the collective’ and, ‘I’m my biggest mentor’. On the way out I grab a quick word with Sam Warburton, who is over the moon Lancaster went to the trouble of getting a David Brent impersonator in.
We’re up early for Lancaster’s second day with the Welsh boys. Stuart has a certain spring in his step this morning; he’s found some rugby balls. He makes a point of coming over and talking to me over breakfast. He explains how, after dropping his latest starting hooker for yet another disciplinary indiscretion, he phoned Gatland and explained how it was only fair that Wales drop their best hooker, and the news came through that morning of Richard Hibbard’s release from the training squad.
I next see Stuart at the end of the day. The coach looks enlightened. He walks up to me and asks, “did you guys know that they have a player specifically to turn over the ball at rucks? It’s revolutionary!”. One of the producers mutters something about searching the terms ‘Hooper + Pocock’ on Google.
After Cardiff, it’s a drive to Pennyhill Park in leafy Surrey to see how Gatland is getting on.
It’s an early start at England’s training base, where Warren Gatland can’t wait to get to work with his new charges. He starts out by singling out Sam Burgess (naturally I assume this is due to his leadership abilitiesTM). Gatland has actually decided to convert him to scrum-half as he’s accustomed to someone of his build in the position.
As the session ends I grab a quick word with Chris Robshaw. The England captain mentions how he enjoyed Gatland’s approach and enjoyed being treated as an open-side flanker. He was also impressed with the simplicity of the strike moves – namely one out runners from the ruck. He wasn’t sure what a ‘Warrenball’ was though.
For his second day with the team, Gatland has decided to run a training session at Twickenham, as that’s where England will be playing all but one of their World Cup games. The New Zealander has decided to hold an open training session so the players can get a taste of the home field advantage they’ll enjoy at the tournament. Gatland’s plans are scuppered however when a member of the Twickenham staff explains that he can’t come in because he isn’t wearing a Barbour jacket and Hunter wellies.
The week of Coach Swap seems to have left a lasting impression on both the coaches and players – for the full documentary, tune into ITV soon.
N.B. not *everything* in this article actually happened. Share your own ‘coach swap’ scenarios below!
By Figurative Pocket (@FigPocket)
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
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Made me smile. I think Gats could do wonders for England – he tends to pick England’s best players (Parling, Wade) rather than those with “credit in the bank”. I can’t imagine Lanc’s management science approach to rugby going down that well in Wales but it seems to work for the Eng team.
I see by your best player comments (Parling Wade) you have grasped the spirit of the article