<<<BACKThey say the key to playing as a flanker is being in the
right place at the right time. In which case nothing could have prepared Gareth
Jenkins for the shock that Mike Ruddock had beaten him to the breakdown and
landed the job as Welsh rugby coach back in 2004. It must have seemed as though
his chance of fulfilling his ultimate ambition was lost and gone forever.
“It was very difficult, it had always been my ambition and I couldn’t
see the opportunity presenting itself again. Who would have thought that Mike
would have left when he did?”
Even so, two years later with the position vacant once again, the pain was still
too acute for Jenkins, and he distanced himself from the post. Time past and
ultimately Gareth Jenkins could not deny his heart the job that he was born to
do.
So inextricably linked were Jenkins and the Llanelli Scarlets, at Stradey Park,
they could have easily featured in further verses of Love and Marriage: you could
not have one without the other. The affair went back years, and his affection
for the town and the game are betrayed by the excitement in his voice as he took
me back to his early memories. “It was a tour match, I think I was about
11, I can remember cramming in behind the posts with all my school friends and
sitting on planks supported by beer crates; it was incredible the atmosphere,
the whole experience was pure magic, that was it, from that moment on, I just
wanted to play rugby.”
Play he did, at 14 he represented Llanelli Schools and made his senior debut
at 19. As a 20-year-old he featured in the town’s finest hour, when Llanelli
beat Ian Kirkpatrick’s All Blacks on the day the bars ran dry. He seemed
a nailed on certainty for international following a B cap against France and
a tour with Wales to the Far East, but it was on a tour to North America with
the Barbarians that he wrecked his knee and ended his career. “I was 27,
I took time to recover but they did not have the surgical techniques that are
available today. I had another season at 28 but I knew it was over. I cannot
describe the frustration I felt.”
It was neither a great mental leap into coaching nor much of journey to his first
appointment. Furnace RFC is so close to Stradey Park that the Welsh Ryder Cup
captain Ian Woosnam could probably knock a drive from one pitch to the other.
Success soon came and after just two years he returned to Stradey as part of
Allan Lewis’ staff, before taking the helm himself.
To list the honours that followed on his watch would waste valuable column inches.
Detractors however will always point out the Heineken Cup never made the trip
over the Louchour Bridge, but they ignore two things. Firstly, the relative lack
of resources when compared to many of the sides that have conquered Europe. Secondly,
an undeniably cruel run of outrageous, and almost laughable, bad luck that plagued
the Scarlets, ranging from injury time penalties bouncing over the bar off every
piece of woodwork, to a ridiculously miss-hit drop goal attempt that bounced
over off the arse of a Llanelli prop!
No stranger to disappointment, Jenkins also likes a challenge, which is good.
The next 12 months goes like this. The Autumn Series in which they play Australia,
a mixed team from the Pacific Islands, followed by Canada and New Zealand. Up
next, the Six Nations followed by a series of summer friendlies in preparation
for the 2007 World Cup this time next year.
Read the full interview in the current issue of RedHanded.
The man
who
would
be king
Rick O'Shea scrums down with Welsh rugby coach and true Scarlet Gareth Jenkins