Come Saturday afternoon, Wales fans will be focused on whether new interim coach Matt Sherratt can provide them with the spark that has been so sorely lacking during Warren Gatland’s second tenure and potentially salvage something from the wreckage of another Six Nations.
Whatever moment they thought represented rock bottom – the first-ever home defeat to Fiji in November perhaps or the 52-20 humiliation against an unproven Australia side seven days later – there is definitely a new feel to things heading into this weekend.
Not exactly optimism, given that the visitors are a well-drilled Ireland side who are on track to become the first team in Five or Six Nations history to win three back-to-back outright titles, but at least hope that something, anything, may be different in Cardiff. And, at this point, different can hardly be worse. Can it?
Sherratt, who is well-liked in rugby circles and whose abilities as an attacking coach are highly regarded, has wasted little time in shaking things up while on secondment from his usual role as head coach of Cardiff Rugby. Fly halves Gareth Anscombe and Jarrod Evans, as well as prolific try-scoring Gloucester centre Max Llewellyn, were all immediately brought into training camp having been inexplicably left out by Gatland. Anscombe and Llewellyn have been thrust straight into the starting XV as part of eight changes from the team that started the Italy clash, while Evans is on the bench.
Gatland acolyte Rob Howley has also been quietly shuffled out as attack coach and while it is probably all unlikely to be enough to bring down Ireland, although the players themselves will rightly believe they can spring an almighty upset, it is at least fresh. It may well also set them up to have a proper crack at the more vulnerable Scotland and England in the final two rounds.
Yet while Sherratt concentrates on the here and now, Wales’s next permanent head coach may well also be strutting his stuff at Principality Stadium. Heading up the opposition coaching staff, trying to inflict further pain on a side he may well be leading a few months down the line, will be Simon Easterby.
With Andy Farrell otherwise engaged on British and Irish Lions duty, Easterby has stepped up as Ireland head coach on a temporary basis for the duration of this Six Nations and the summer. As hands-on work experience goes, it could hardly be progressing any better for the 49-year-old, who has negotiated games against England and Scotland with aplomb so far.
Having been part of the Irish coaching setup since 2014, firstly as forwards coach then as defence coach, he is intimately familiar with the system, and the continuity from Farrell’s tenure has been flawless. His effectiveness has made people sit up and take notice and suddenly Easterby is a hot name on the coaching carousel.
Perhaps being heavily linked with the vacant Wales job was inevitable. Despite being born in Yorkshire and winning 65 caps for Ireland, Easterby has strong connections to Wales.
He played the majority of his club career for Scarlets, and their forerunner Llanelli RFC, is married to the estimable Sarra Elgan – one of the best rugby TV presenters in the UK, a fluent Welsh speaker and the daughter of Wales international Elgan Rees – and their family are based in Wales.
On a personal level, the role is a natural fit and his efforts in interim charge of Ireland are ensuring that it makes sense from a rugby perspective as well. Along with Glasgow Warriors coach Franco Smith, Easterby appears to be the current frontrunner as the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) conduct their search, although the man himself has been eager to quash any rumours.
“I didn't really know that I had been linked, but of course there's been speculation and that's all it is: speculation,” Easterby explained this week ahead of the Wales v Ireland clash.
“I'm not in control of that. I love what I do here [as Ireland boss]. I've been in this position with the team for a long time and I'm very fortunate with the people I get to work with, both management and players, and for me that's a dream job. Speculation is exactly that, it's speculation and it's not something I can control.”
Only Easterby will know whether he truly wants the Wales job. Perhaps he is happy to stay within the Ireland system, where he has spent the past 11 years, which would certainly give him an easier life and more stability. But if he harbours genuine ambitions of being an international head coach (permanently) and running his own team, this may well be his best – perhaps only – opportunity.
Timing is everything and there aren’t many international jobs to go round. No one is pretending the situation in Wales is ideal, with the WRU invariably lurching from one crisis to another and the very structure that governs rugby in the country needing a radical overhaul. This is expected to put off some of the higher-profile candidates. The much sought-after Ronan O’Gara, for example, made it clear before Christmas that the Wales job wasn’t necessarily high on his priority list.
Can Easterby afford to be that picky? The sweeping changes he has made for Saturday’s clash, using the match as an opportunity to rotate and rest many of his best players in a manner that used to be reserved for games against Italy, reveals plenty about where he thinks his current Welsh side stand in comparison to Ireland. But he doesn’t have the impeccable coaching CV of O’Gara and when opportunity knocks – no matter what state it appears to be in – you must answer the door.
At the very least, this adds an intriguing narrative to a Six Nations game that many fear could be one-sided. Will Easterby deliver the most compelling of practical job interviews to watching WRU bosses or will Sherratt inspire a mini-Welsh bounce? Wales fans will be most concerned with the present at Principality Stadium, but they would be advised to keep one eye on their possible future.
