LONG READ ‘There are coaches who make you believe in yourself more than ever. Steve is one of those’

The words of one of Welsh rugby’s most respected figures from yesteryear came to mind after Steve Tandy had been installed in arguably the hottest seat in world rugby.

“One day Steve could coach Wales,” the late Derrick King told this writer all the way back in 2012, after Tandy had stepped up from Bridgend Ravens to take over the running of team affairs at the Ospreys.

Bullseye, Derrick: prescience, indeed. One of rugby’s true gents had seen the former flanker lift the Ravens from the lower reaches of the old division one in Wales to mid-table respectability in the Principality Premiership, all in double-quick time, and he was ultra-impressed, not just with the team’s results but also with the way the man from Tonmawr went about his business and related to people.

Messages were conveyed clearly and with patience, even when the odd bump in the road was encountered; supporters were treated with respect, with the then 30-year-old seeing them as a vital part of the club; Bridgend officials were briefed regularly by a young coach who positively bristled with ideas; players were coached rather than merely trained, improving accordingly. For King, it was coaching on a different level. “He was superb for us,” he summed up all those years ago.

So much has happened to Tandy since, culminating in his freshly revealed appointment as Wales head coach. Not all of it has been smooth sailing, of course – recall the budgetary squeeze towards the end of his time at the Ospreys that would have challenged a vastly experienced coach, let alone one in his first job in the professional game. But Tandy dusted himself down and accepted the experience for what it was, namely a life lesson that setbacks happen: it’s how you respond that matters.

And respond he did, first by heading to Australia to work with the Waratahs, where he earned the respect of a squad that included Kurtley Beale, Michael Hooper, Israel Folau and Bernard Foley, then by overseeing some brick-wall performances as Scotland’s defence coach, a role he made such a success of that one commentator remarked there were “shades of Shaun Edwards in his approach”.  We’ll consider that some compliment.

Along the way there was a tour to South Africa with the Lions in 2021.

He knew all of our families and you knew it wasn’t an act. He genuinely cared about people, which is important.

How Wales’ new coach starts his reign will be interesting, because early impressions can be important. Paul O’Connell once recalled how Joe Schmidt had wasted no time making a significant impact on Ireland’s players after he had been appointed as their team boss: “We were playing Samoa in our first game under Joe and we were doing a video session a few days before.

“All these Samoans with incredibly long and hard-to-pronounce names, but Joe pronounced every name immaculately. I suppose it [was] his way of saying: ‘I’ve done my job. I know these guys inside out and now it’s your turn to do your job with the same level of detail.”

We can’t be sure whether Tandy will open his reign by standing before the Welsh squad before they face Argentina this autumn and faultlessly reel off the names of Juan Martin Gonzalez Samso, Faustino Sanchez Valarolo, Francisco Coria Marchetti and others. But what we can say with complete confidence is this: what Wales’ players will see when they meet up with their new coach is exactly what they will get. In Tandy’s world, hidden agendas or ulterior motives are for others. He is big on authenticity and on telling it straight.

“Very honest,” is the verdict of former Wales hooker Scott Baldwin, who played under him at the Ospreys. “He also has a really good way of putting it across, even if it’s sometimes not what every player wants to hear. He gives you detail to support his point of view.

“The boys had a huge amount of time for him. When we went through a sticky patch towards the end of his time at the Ospreys, Steve never said it was the players’ fault. He’d always look at himself, even though we knew he wasn’t to blame. We just weren’t getting it right on the pitch at the time. When a coach owns things under those circumstances, you buy into him even more.

“It’s the little things as well. He knew all of our families and you knew it wasn’t an act. He genuinely cared about people, which is important. You could also have a laugh with him on the plane coming back from games, but you knew he was the boss.”

After I was bitten by a lion in South Africa in 2017, Steve stayed by my bedside while I was sleeping after surgery, to make sure everything was OK

Not that Tandy the player was famed for non-stop laughter. The memory drifts back to the time when the Ospreys negotiated a deal with a sports nutrition company that required star performers to give post-game TV interviews while wearing a branded baseball cap.  There were no problems until Tandy was feted as a man of the match, with Tonmawr’s finest in no hurry to sport the headwear on live TV. Cue the sight of Tandy answering questions while conforming to the sponsors’ requirements while looking about as happy as a man who had heard a lorry had just reversed over his new car.

As the cameras cut away, there was the sight of that day’s player of the game hurling the said baseball cap to the ground while vowing never to wear it again. “It’s fair to say a spot of, er, industrial language might have been used, as well,” laughs the region’s media man at the time, Peter Owen. Fun and games.

Baldwin recalls another side to Tandy.  “After I was bitten by a lion in South Africa in 2017, Steve stayed by my bedside while I was sleeping after surgery, to make sure everything was OK,” says the now Bridgend coach.

“Generally speaking, I owe him a lot. There are coaches who make you believe in yourself more than you’d ever believed in yourself, and Steve’s one of those.

“He saved my career before it almost began, because I looked to be on my way out at the Ospreys before he took over, with our director of coaching Scott Johnson having sent me to Italy to play and told me that at the end of the year my dream of being a pro wasn’t going to happen, as he didn’t think I was good enough.

“When Scott left a few weeks later, Steve took over as coach and said to me: ‘Mate, I’m going to back you.  You’re going to have your fair share of rugby and we’ll see to it that you are properly mentored. Then it’s up to you.’ I’d like to think I didn’t look back after that.”

Tandy’s in-tray will be overflowing, what with the need to assemble a backroom team, improve relations with Wales’ professional sides, form opinions on players and decide on a way of playing.

What kind of rugby will Tandy’s Wales serve up? At the Ospreys, he sought to oversee a high tempo game that had athletic and mobile players such as Tyler Ardron, Justin Tipuric and Joe Bearman roving in the loose, but there was also power and edge supplied by the likes of Alun Wyn Jones, Bradley Davies, Baldwin, Dmitri Arhip, Nicky Smith, Sam Underhill and Olly Cracknell.

Scrum-halves Brendon Leonard and Rhys Webb were instructed to move the ball quickly from rucks, while there were opportunities aplenty for wings Jeff Hassler, Eli Walker and a young Keelan Giles. If the defence wasn’t what it had been in days of old, that was partly because midway through Tandy’s tenure, the Ospreys were hit by the premature retirement through injury of Andrew Bishop, arguably the finest tackler to have worn an Ospreys jersey.

Those spells in Australia and Scotland have equipped Tandy with a more rounded view of the game, while he has learned the importance of not overloading players with messages and is still big on the need for players to demonstrate good basics.

His in-tray will be overflowing, what with the need to assemble a backroom team, improve relations with Wales’ professional sides, form opinions on players and decide on a way of playing.

There is also the challenge of guiding Wales through a testing autumn that includes fixtures against South Africa, New Zealand and Argentina, while Tandy will also be working in an environment that has the potential to redefine the concept of instability, as the WRU decide whether or not to reduce the number of regions, with all the uncertainty that could bring for players, coaches and supporters.

Oh, and Wales have won just one of their last 19 fixtures. To adapt an old line, anybody who says Welsh rugby isn’t facing huge challenges is basically the mayor in Jaws.

And Tandy will be expected to build out of those ruins.

Other than interim figures, the last Welshman to fill the Wales head coach role was Gareth Jenkins, whose time in charge lasted just 16 months, with poor results, criticism and plenty of adverse headlines along the way. Previously, Mike Ruddock held the reins for less than two years before departing, while Kevin Bowring, Ron Waldron and John Ryan also endured difficult spells as national team boss. Most of those operated in a pre-social media world, yet the scrutiny was relentless.

I’m genuinely excited as a Welshman because I think we have the right character coming in to make a big difference.

Nowadays, in a time of X (Twitter) and podcasts wherever you look and listen, criticism can be even more stinging and loud, with everyone having a megaphone. History also suggests in Wales tribalism can colour views, especially if the national coach is homegrown. It shouldn’t happen that way, but it does.

“People do go in for finger-pointing here,” says Gruff Rees, Tandy’s old coaching partner at the Ospreys. “As a country, we have high aspirations but we also lack a bit of confidence in ourselves.

“I just think we need to give Steve a fair chance. There are problems at every level and some people try to deflect those problems. But Steve will own them and make people accountable.

“I think we should consider this period as a line in the sand. We’ve had an awful few years which has seen us stuck in the mire, but now, with Dave Reddin coming in as the WRU’s director of rugby, and Steve starting as national coach, there’s a real opportunity and a vision for the game.

“I’m genuinely excited as a Welshman because I think we have the right character coming in to make a big difference.”

Some point out Tandy hasn’t been a head coach for seven years. But operating on shifting sands at the Ospreys between 2012 and 2018 he oversaw a league title success and two semi-final appearances. He has also had the chance to work with the likes of Daryl Gibson, Gregor Townsend and Warren Gatland, gaining insights along the way.

Rewind just over a decade and a half and the then Ford Mondeo-driving Tandy, still very much playing for his home region, was asked in an Ospreys programme interview what he’d be if he weren’t a rugby player.

His reply? “I don’t know. I couldn’t be stuck in an office, so I would have to be out and about outside, coaching or something.”

A throwaway line, perhaps? Or maybe Tandy was already thinking about his future.

Whatever, his accession to the Wales head coach role is a career high.

It would be odd not to wish him all the luck in the world. Every Wales head coach tends to need it.