INCOMING HEAD COACH Wayne Pivac will have another position to fill in the Wales backroom team next year as Shaun Edwards confirmed he will depart the principality after a decade.
The defence coach, who previously looked set to return to rugby league coaching with Wigan, came under public pressure from departing head coach Warren Gatland this week amid increasing interest from France.
“I’m sick of reading about it in the newspapers every day,” Gatland said early this week.
“I can let that go at the moment because we’re not in (training or camp) as a squad. But if it goes on much longer I will have some words with people to get it sorted because there has been enough speculation and talk.”
In a statement released by the WRU today signalling Edwards’ departure, Gatland said:
“It is pleasing that we can draw a line under the speculation regarding Shaun’s future with this announcement and we can look forward to preparing the squad for the Rugby World Cup.”
In his parting words, Edwards also looked towards Japan, where Wales take on Australia and Fiji in Pool D, with England, France and Argentina among potential quarter-final opponents.
“After more than 10 years with Wales this has been an incredibly difficult decision to reach but I won’t be renewing my contract. I would like to thank Warren and the WRU for the opportunity I have had working with the national team.”
“We have won four Six Nations titles during my time with Wales, but I sincerely hope and believe that the best days are yet to come and I am fully focused on seeing what we can achieve in Japan.”
Along with Gatland and Edwards, forwards coach Robin McBryde this week announced he would depart Wales to take up a role with Leinster.
Subscribe to our new podcast, The42 Rugby Weekly, here:
Tough blow to lose so many important players. Molony and Penny were two of the stars of the 6 Nations while Byrne and Hackshaw were key playmakers at 10 and 12 with Hacksahw being the captain. I’d fancy Allison to come into the backrow instead of Molony without too much drop off in quality as he might have started if he’d been fit for the 6 Nations. Replacing Penny is nigh on impossible but Healy and French/Moore will do a fine job coming in at 10 and 12. The issue will be the lack of depth now we’re down some big players and guys having so many big games in such a short period of time.
Its concerning the amount of serious injuries in a young squad like that already
One “IQ” player is that a good return should there be more
@Exiled Dub: why should there be more?
also Iwan Hughes is a IQ rugby product who is with Ulster now.
I wonder how the other home countries are getting on, say England next week ?? Do we have the worst list ???)
@Martin Quinn: A few injuries and also the unavailability of #10 Marcus Smith because he’s playing for England development XV vs the Barbarians ! A disappointing priority for the rest of the squad, I imagine.
See https://www.englandrugby.com/news/england-men-u20s-squad-update/
@Martin Quinn: No mention of Australian injuries here:
https://www.rugby.com.au/news/2019/05/07/world-u20-championships-junior-wallabies-squad
They beat NZ 24-0 in a final recently !
@Martin Quinn: Italy had to omit 3 injured players who were “more or less important”. See:
https://www.federugby.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=112&Itemid=427
So my guess is that our missing 5, 6, 7, 10 and 12 represent the greatest omissions in our group.
Ah well, cometh the hour, cometh the man …
@Martin Quinn: https://u20rugby.wordpress.com if you’re interested keep an eye on this
@Glenbower:
Thanks for that :: Glen
@Eddie Hekenui:
Thanks for that :: EDDIE