Joe Schmidt has all the sympathy in the world for Warren Gatland’s plight even while sending his old New Zealand friend and foe ever closer to the exit door as Wales coach.
Amid the satisfaction of a job well done, Wallabies boss Schmidt evidently also felt just a bit pained in inflicting the crushing 52-20 victory on his old sparring partner in Cardiff, a drubbing that left Welsh rugby agonising over the wreckage of a record-breaking 11th straight Test defeat.
It also left 61-year-old Gatland cutting an oddly melancholic figure as he mixed a defiant protestation that he was willing to fight for his job with an almost resigned shrug that he was happy to go along with whatever his WRU paymasters decided.
Asked if he could feel for his fellow Kiwi, Schmidt said: “Yeah, absolutely.
“We were talking before the game, we both shrugged our shoulders at the end of it, and said, ‘Who’d wanna be a coach?’”
Well, Gatland apparently still does. The man who once oversaw the best winning streak in the 143-year history of the Welsh national team – 14 in 2018-19 – may now also own the worst sequence, but some things never change.
“Absolutely, I’d be prepared to fight for my job … I do it because I love being involved in the game,” Gatland said.
“I have so many good memories with Wales and am incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved. It’s challenging. I’m only human so I ask myself if it’s the right thing to do. But I’m happy doing it.”
With one match left in his November campaign, the most daunting of the lot against world champions South Africa next week, one more drubbing like Sunday’s looks as much a probability as more Gatland-beating from the Welsh media.
“It’s the most challenging time, there’s no doubt about that, and what will be will be,” he sighed.
“I am passionate about Welsh rugby but there’s a lot of negativity around the game right now. I want the best decision to be made about Welsh rugby. I will respect the decision and if that means me (going), I’m comfortable with that.”
Gatland did offer his resignation amid the losing streak after their Six Nations blowout, but amid this transitional period for a team that’s lost so many of its old luminaries to retirement, the real question in Wales remains: could anyone else do any better?
“It’s tough,” said a sympathetic Schmidt, who felt the Welsh performance had been far better than the 32-point margin suggested.
“It’s tough for the Welsh players at the moment. I could see how hard they were working, the way they built their way back into the game at 19-13. That’s admirable stuff … and they probably just needed a couple of breaks to go their way.”
