Write Wales off at your peril – Gatland

Wales head coach Warren Gatland says he faces the most exciting challenge of his career and warned critics to “write his side off at their peril”.

The 61-year-old has kept his job for the 2025 Six Nations despite leading Wales to a 12-game international record losing run, which includes 11 Test losses in 2024.

The Wales coach is in his second stint after leading his adopted nation to three Grand Slams and two World Cup semi-finals between 2008 and 2019.

Gatland has only won six out of 24 Tests since returning to replace Wayne Pivac in December 2022, with Wales slipping to 11th in the world rankings.

When asked whether this was the biggest challenge of his career, Gatland responded: “No, it is the most exciting challenge.”

“I look back to the World Cup in France, where a lot of people were predicting we would not get out of that group. One of the things I said is ‘write us off at your peril’.”

Gatland says he will aim to ignore external criticism.

“It’s been about creating some positivity,” said Gatland.

“It is almost like creating a siege mentality and realising there is a lot of negativity and criticism from outside towards myself and the coaches and the players.

“We need to put some confidence back in and create that self-belief. It’s about bonding and working hard as a group.

“The messaging is to try and get rid of that negativity, don’t let social media take over too much of what is being said externally.

“Sometimes it creates a bond within a group with some positive momentum going into the tournament.”

Gatland says patience is needed as Wales build towards the 2027 World Cup.

“We have stated we are building towards 2027,” said Gatland.

“It is going to take a bit of time when you lose so much experience and have youngsters now.

“We have a young group we are trying to build with.

“For this tournament, we have players like Taulupe Faletau, Josh Adams and Daf Jenkins back and they are going to make a big difference to us.

“It is a British and Irish Lions year, so that is something for the players to be excited for.”

Gatland hopes the Welsh public get behind the team.

“They have been brilliant over the years, they are incredibly passionate,” he said.

“They have a lot of expectation and that is understandable.

“It is a tournament where we have probably punched above our weight and done well in over the last 10-15 years.

“It’s only right they should expect us to go out there and do well.”

Wales open their campaign against France in Paris on Friday, 31 January before travelling to face Italy eight days later.

“The first two games are incredibly important,” said Gatland.

“We have been to Paris before on a number of occasions and won there.

“There are no expectations on us, everybody is writing us off and it is a nice position to be in.

“Sometimes the French have demonstrated in the past they have been slow starters in this tournament.

“We can hopefully go there with the ambition of them being underdone and a little bit cold, so hopefully we can get off to a good start.”

Gatland was upbeat on the fitness of returning number eight Taulupe Faletau, who has picked up a knee injury and was rated by Cardiff head coach Matt Sherratt as “touch and go” for Wales’ opening match.

“At the moment, the update from the medical team is everyone should be available for the first game,” he said.

“We had Taulupe in during the autumn and it was obvious even in training, when he wasn’t running around fully fit, what a quality and experienced international he is, with some of the lines he ran and some of his touches.

“I know he’s worked hard in the last year or two in terms of getting back and he’s motivated.

“He wants to have a good Six Nations and there’s a carrot at the end of the season with a Lions tour.

“He’s pretty motivated to make an impression and see if he can be selected for that.”