15-05-2025
New WRU boss tells Dan Biggar about Wales' next coach and might call him for help
New WRU boss tells Dan Biggar about Wales' next coach and might call him for help
The new WRU director of performance was appearing on Dan Biggar's A Load of BS on Sport podcast
New WRU chief Dave Reddin and Dan Biggar, inset
New Welsh Rugby Union director of rugby and elite performance Dave Reddin has outlined what he wants from Wales' new coach, as he revealed how he could tap into the experience of former players like Dan Biggar.
Reddin was appointed last month, with his first task as Nigel Walker's replacement being to throw himself into the search for Warren Gatland's successor, after the Wales coach walked away from his job mid-Six Nations. The former FA performance expert doesn't start officially with the WRU until September, but with the search for a head coach already well underway, Reddin is already understood to have put his own stamp on the existing search.
Appearing on former Wales fly-half Biggar's A Load of BS on Sport podcast, Reddin outlined the credentials for the new coach of the national team and how he envisaged his working relationship with the new appointment looking like.
"If we think about the head coach, it's different," said Reddin. "It's a different role than maybe before in the sense of I've worked alongside head coaches in a very operational capacity previously.
"Now I think it's about providing that person with the vision so they understand where the organization's trying to go, but then the appropriate level of challenge and support, which will change at different times. That's a judgment call.
"You've got to understand the people and the personality and the experience and choose your moments wisely. I don't think anybody particularly enjoys a whole bunch of challenge the moment you walk through the door.
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"It is about supporting that person into the role and helping them understand that there's a lot of support around them. This is bigger than just one team. It's a pathway and a system we're trying to create.
"So I very much want to be a support to the head coach, to act as a sounding board when necessary. And I hope someone whose expertise they can tap into as and when they need it."
In terms of his role in the search process itself, he added: "Over the last week or so I've really just been picking up what's been happening so far and the list of people in the process that they've gone through.
"And then I've spent some time now just putting some traits, competencies and behaviours that we might be looking for around that sort of person. It's important to say there's never a perfect candidate, that no one ever fits that profile absolutely perfectly.
"But I think if I was to pick out some of the things that I'd be looking for, certainly someone who's got a great track record of development, they understand and they're passionate about development. So they can understand and relate to younger players. They've got a real passion for how to get the best out of that group of talent that's there.
"I'd love to work with someone who's really curious and open-minded and willing to, to try some different things in the pursuit of really trying to make a leap rather than just a couple of steps forward over the next few years with the team.
"Then I think somebody who really wants to buy into a system approach rather than it just being all about the team. Someone who genuinely wants to collaborate internally within the WRU , but also recognizes the importance of the regions and the relationships with the regions so that, almost scale-wise, you could imagine that whole system looking like a really big club.
"Metaphorically, you can pop down to the training ground, which is in Cardiff or Swansea or whatever, as a manager in a football team might do when he's going to see the academy. Different people will bring some of those traits in different qualities.
"As always, it's about making the optimal compromise because as I've experienced before, hiring a couple of coaches recently in Spain, you can start off with this beautiful profile and then it's about who's available, who wants to do the job, who wants to buy into it and can you get them? So there's a whole series of factors that come into play."
Steve Tandy is favourite to land the Wales head coach job
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As he offered comparisons to the job Gareth Southgate did in turning around England's national football team following their early exit at Euro 2016, Reddin noted that "belief isn't this thing that just sort of floats around in the air".
"Belief has to be anchored in something that you actually do," he said. "You have to have something to believe in. That could be objective statistics on your fitness levels, or your performance statistically in a game, or the last time you'd managed to win or whatever it is.
"You build belief through actions and activities. You don't build it by showing motivational videos, getting people in a circle, having a hug and just shouting 'believe'. It's a process. It takes time.
"You build it through the quality of your training sessions. You build it through small wins. That's what we did there (at the FA) and I'm sure any high quality head coach would recognise the same sort of traits." Join WalesOnline Rugby's WhatsApp Channel here to get the breaking news sent straight to your phone for free
It's something that Biggar himself admitted to recognising, with the two-time Lions tourist admitting there had been times where he and his team-mates hadn't necessarily agreed with coaches, but - because they had seen the process worked - they had belief in what they were being instructed to do.
Obviously, on the back of 17 straight Test defeats, Wales' national team is abundantly short on belief. Tapping into former players, like Biggar, who have been in more successful recent sides is an obvious solution that has been suggested on more than one occasion recently.
Towards the end of Gatland's second stint, WRU CEO Abi Tierney said she was going to set up a panel that would have former internationals on it to offer rugby insight to the board.
And, as Gatland's relationship with the media and, in particular, former players working as pundits soured ahead of his exit, the criticism from his more staunch defenders was why some former players in the media weren't helping out with Welsh rugby.
It's an argument that Biggar himself admitted to finding interesting on the podcast, noting that looking to past generations for advice could just pile more pressure on the current generation.
Former players could be asked to help
Prior to taking the job, Reddin actually sounded out the likes of Biggar and Jamie Roberts - and he remains open to listening to past players, but on his own terms.
"What I meant is certainly not 'let's bring people in to talk about the past and when we were winning, we did this and the other'," he explained. "Cause we have all been in those rooms when a previous generation came in and maybe there's a couple of nuggets of advice, but generally you don't want to go back because it is different.
"Every year is different. What I'm talking about is those small little nuanced conversations that someone like you, as a result of your experience, might just be able to pass on to a young player that's not in the coaching manual.
"It's maybe not even something that an elite coach has in their repertoire to be able to communicate because it's just that read that you had. It's the little thing that you saw as a result of the number of games that you've played in that sort of pressure or that small way that you had of just preparing in a particular context, or it was the way that you handled negative feedback.
Dan Biggar has had plenty to say about Wales' struggles
(Image: Chris Fairweather/Huw Evans Agency )
"It's those sort of things that I think can be incredibly valuable. Not in a sort of a mandated way. It's about having someone there that you can go to if you need.
"It's not there trying to force their experience down your throat, but equally they're there being able to just be another voice, another person you can turn to.
"Now, I think what you also highlighted is the head coach has got to be comfortable having those people around. They don't feel threatened by it, that they feel that it's actually a benefit, that it's not cutting across them. That's an important quality, that sort of humility.
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"And back to what I said earlier about collaboration and open-mindedness, I think is an important part of accessing that experience and those resources that former players might bring."
After Biggar joked that he was unemployed at the end of the season and was more than happy to help out, Reddin added: "I know where you live and I will be calling so don't worry."
