Warren Gatland Set To Walk Away From Head Coach Role
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Warren Gatland is set to shockingly walk away from Welsh rugby following next summer’s British & Irish Lions tour to New Zealand.
The New Zealander has been given an extended sabbatical from coaching Wales in order to focus on preparing for next summer’s three-Test tour against the world champions, whose only series defeat to the Lions was back in 1971.
According to Sportsmail Gatland has alerted close friends of his plan to remain in New Zealand after the tour, having spent almost nine years living 12,000 miles from home and normally only seeing his family four times a year.
Wasps director of rugby Dai Young, the former Wales and Lions prop whose coaching stock has risen since taking over the Aviva Premiership outfit in 2011, negotiating one of the most difficult periods in the club’s history, is understood to be the WRU’s preferred replacement.
Gatland signed a six-year contract extension in 2013 understood to be worth more than £500,000 a year, making him the best paid coach in world rugby. He now looks set to walk away however and return to his native New Zealand.
