NEW Ospreys forwards coach Chris Gibbes has revealed how British & Irish Lions boss Warren Gatland urged him to join the region.
Gibbes arrived at the Liberty Stadium earlier this month after a decade with the Waikato Rugby Union, the last four years as head coach of the Waikato ITM Cup team.
Fellow New Zealander and Wales chief Gatland was in charge of the same side during the 2005-06 season, guiding them to the national provincial title. The two men have kept in touch and, when Jonathan Humphreys vacated his forwards coaching role at the Ospreys to join Scotland's staff, Gatland tipped Gibbes to take the job. "I coached with him (Gatland) as I was coming through at Waikato," said Gibbes.
"I had a chat with him and he had good things to say about the Ospreys. He thought it would be a really good challenge for me.
"We've got the mutual responsibility of making sure the players play well for the Ospreys and Wales."
Gatland was not the only Kiwi to give the Ospreys a ringing endorsement.
Marty Holah, the ex-All Blacks flanker who spent four years with the region before returning to Waikato in 2011, also recommended the Ospreys to his former coach.
"Marty Holah speaks very highly of his time in Swansea with the Ospreys," said Gibbes.
"I've followed the competitions in Europe, particularly the Heineken Cup and the Pro12, and the Ospreys are a top club.
"The thing that convinced me the most was the fact the Ospreys are about achievement and have high expectations. But they're also about building from within, and that's something I believe in philosophically as a coach."
This will be Gibbes's first taste of club coaching in the northern hemisphere, having led Waikato to two finals in 2010 and 2011 and assisted with the Japanese and Georgian national teams.
And with the Ospreys' Lions contingent — Alun Wyn Jones, Adam Jones, Richard Hibbard, Justin Tipuric and Ian Evans — soon returning to training following their series triumph in Australia, Gibbes is looking forward to working with his new players.
"Any team that boasts this amount of Lions and Wales players, as well as the Wales Under-20s guys coming through, any coach is going to be excited to get his hands on that," he said.
"The challenge is going to be about making sure we don't change everything and keep growing as a group. This is a time for me to observe the group and to get used to it. It should be a really good challenge."
Dafydd Pritchard
