'This is like an Eddie Jones question, is it' - Gatland on his Wales future

Wales boss Warren Gatland was quizzed on his future as head coach following Wales’ Rugby World Cup quarter-final exit at the hands of Argentina in Marseille yesterday evening.

The Welsh may have crashed out of the tournament following the 29-17 loss to Michael Cheika’s Argentina but Gatland struck a surprisingly upbeat figure in the post-match press conference in the bowels of the Stade Velodrome.

The 60-year-old was asked about his immediate future with Wales, whom he took over for a second spell earlier this year.

“This is like an Eddie Jones question, is it?! I’m not actually sure what’s in my contract. I think there’s a clause from the union. I’m not too sure what the actual wording is, I haven’t actually read it.”

Gatland however was clear, he wants to stay on as Wales head coach.

“Yeh, absolutely, [on whether he wants to continue coaching Wales] but if the union want to get rid of me, they are completely entitled to do that as well. That’s up to them.

“I think that’s the big thing. We’re all pretty disappointed, pretty gutted about that. It’s one that slipped away from us, but you’ve got to take learnings. How do you continue to improve and develop as a squad? Some of the learnings from today…we had a team that kicked a lot against us and kicked long and we probably at times played a little bit too much rugby around about halfway and maybe needed to be potentially a little bit more conservative. But how do we take those learnings and grow as a team?

“I’m incredibly proud of the work that these players have put in, the coaches, the whole staff have been absolutely fantastic. We’ve made some really good strides and we need to make sure we continue on that path. We don’t want to be going backwards. That’s a good challenge for us to accept, to make sure we continue to keep improving.

“A lot of people were writing us off before this tournament, saying we wouldn’t get out of the group, so that was the first thing. This group have worked really hard to get what they have achieved. I just said to the players in the changing room… they are very down, very disappointed but they should hold their heads up. They should be proud of what they have done. We have got to make sure we continue to grow and improve as a team. We have got some exciting players coming through. Hopefully they will be inspired by this and will want to be involved in it going forward.”