Gatland's challenge for Wales

Gatland: Favourites tag

My experience of Australian teams in the past is when they are in this situation and taken a bit of criticism, there is normally only one way they come out - with all guns blazing.

Warren Gatland
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Wales boss Warren Gatland has challenged his players to handle the pressure of being favourites when they take on Australia on Saturday.

After beating the Wallabies last year and with the tourists losing 9-8 to Scotland last week, Wales find themselves favourites for their clash in Cardiff.

Gatland has faced Tri-Nations opposition in seven of his 22 games in charge and thinks that their success against the major southern hemisphere powers will help.

Gatland has warned his players that accepting being favourites will be their major challenge, and he wants them to rise to that challenge.

"One of the challenges for us is possibly accepting what might be a tag of favourites," said Gatland. "The current coaching regime has something like a 66% (overall) success rate, and we have played against more southern hemisphere teams than any other Welsh regime.

Not good enough

"We haven't been good enough on two occasions to beat the All Blacks, but we've played South Africa three times, and on two of those three occasions we had chances to win.

"The next progression for the side is going in, handling that expectation and developing as a team.

"Knowing the Australian attitude - it doesn't matter whether it is rugby union, cricket, rugby league, whatever - when their backs are to the wall, they tend to respond. We expect them to play with a lot of passion."

Gatland fields nine of the side that accounted for Australia 21-18 last November, while the Wallabies' planned successful grand slam tour has already unravelled.

They had high high hopes of beating England, Ireland, Scotland and finally Wales, but their solitary success so far has been an 18-9 verdict at Twickenham.

Unlucky

"Australia should not have lost - they created so many opportunities," said Gatland.

"It was a great win for Scotland, and you have got to congratulate them, but if that game was played 99 times out of 100 and Australia took their chances, they would have won.

"As a team, Australia have been quite unlucky. They could easily have been playing for a grand slam this weekend.

"My experience of Australian teams in the past is when they are in this situation and taken a bit of criticism, there is normally only one way they come out - with all guns blazing.

"The test for us is to continue with our progression on Saturday, and be smart in the way we play."