'Should have done better in the last RWC': Gatland weighs in on draw debate

Wales head coach Warren Gatland does not appear to have a huge amount of sympathy for the critics of the World Cup draw, which has pitted the top four sides in the world against each other in the quarter-finals this week.

World number ones Ireland face the number four All Blacks on Saturday, while number two and number three go head-to-head when France host South Africa the day later. Meanwhile, Gatland’s seventh place Wales play eight place Argentina in Marseille and sixth place England play tenth place Fiji.

In response to the outrage there has been over how the tournament has panned out (and was always going to pan out), Gatland has been fairly unsympathetic, and has said the teams should have done better last World Cup. The draw for this World Cup was made three years ago, so was heavily influenced by the results of the showcase in Japan, where Wales reached the semi-finals and England reached the final. Meanwhile, both Ireland and France failed to progress beyond the quarter-final stage.

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Not only did he send that message to the other teams in the competition but he also cited similar situations Wales have been in in previous World Cups, while also pointing out that he felt Wales were in the “most even group” this year with Australia, Fiji, Georgia and Portugal.

“I just say to the other teams, they should have done better in the last World Cup shouldn’t they?” Gatland said.

“That is where the draw has come from. It’s not our fault that it happened, if teams had better performances and results from the last World Cup they would probably be in different pools. You didn’t hear us complaining in 2015 when we had Fiji, Australia and England in the same pool, we never complained about that. You are dealt the hand and you have just got to deal with it.

“I understand there has been a lot of complaining and I agree with the sentiment that potentially the draw may have been done too early in the past. It was probably done too early in 2019 as well so whether the people in control of it next time can put the pools together a little bit later that is up to them but we can’t change what’s been done.

“All I can say is we are only in control of what we are doing, we are happy with the progress we have made and considering there’s a lot of people speculating, a lot of people in this room said we wouldn’t get out of our group. I’d say we can only play and do what is in front of us.

“I thought our group was the most even group. The way Portugal [played] and Georgia are not an easy team to knock over, the only group who didn’t have a real minnow in there that didn’t get 60 or 70 points put on them. I think that has set us up nicely for the quarter-finals and it’s one step at a time.”