Warren Gatland vows struggling Wales will do ‘something special’ at World Cup

Warren Gatland has backed Wales to do “something pretty special” at the World Cup in France.

Wales face England in their opening tournament warm-up game on Saturday after winning just two of the last 10 Tests.

A miserable Six Nations campaign produced a fifth-placed finish, while player contracts, financial issues throughout Welsh professional rugby and the threat of a players’ strike significantly compounded matters.

Wales have also dropped to ninth in World Rugby’s official rankings and seen talismanic figures like Alun Wyn Jones, Justin Tipuric and Rhys Webb all retire from international rugby since the end of last season.

Head coach Gatland, though, has delivered an upbeat message ahead of Wales’ preparation games against England home and away, plus South Africa, before a tough World Cup opener against Fiji in Bordeaux on September 10th.

Asked if he relished Wales being written off, Gatland said: “Yeah. Continue to do it because it’s only going to make us stronger.

“I am really excited. I’m telling you this team will do something pretty special.

“I think if I look back on the Six Nations and all the things that were going on, I probably needed to let things unfold a bit and not be as direct or demanding as I might have normally been.

“The fact that things have settled down and a lot of new players have come in, the way that we’ve been so much more accountable for how we do things and demanding standards, that has been brilliant.

“As a group, we are in a good place. I promise you now, we will surprise some people.”

Wales’ training squad experienced punishing training camps in Switzerland and Turkey during the past month and Gatland will parade three news caps – Max Llewellyn, Corey Domachowski and Keiron Assiratti –