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If Warren Gatland was exasperated by the staying power of the Brian O’Driscoll-Lions issue by the end of last week, at least he will probably never have to go through such a scenario again.

Not only will O’Driscoll retire at the end of the season but, on current evidence, Gatland won’t get the chance to put any other iconic nose out of joint in 2017.

Because he won’t be in charge of the Lions in New Zealand. Joe Schmidt will.

Since taking the Wales helm in 2008 Gatland has – despite Wales having to negotiate a couple of very ordinary years in 2009 and 2010 – bestrode the Six Nations tournament as its coaching daddy. The arrival of Schmidt however, is a game-changer.

Wales have talked about an historic third title, about maintaining their grip on the northern hemisphere scene right through to the 2015 World Cup and beyond, not least through a bunch of talented players who will be in their physical prime.

No individual threatens that ambition more than Schmidt, who in the seven months or so that he has been in charge of Ireland appears to have made them more tactically malleable than they have been in the modern era. And he has forged a collective mentality that sees him revered by his most senior lieutenants, O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell.

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All sports boast an upper echelon of coaches who can marry knowledge and searing powers of analysis with exceptional interpersonal skills and an uncanny ability to persuade those who do their bidding to buy into the gameplan 100%.

Present indications are that Schmidt, like Graham Henry a former school teacher, ticks both those boxes.

Two consecutive Heineken Cup victories with Leinster, for now, highlight the fact that what he does works. Ireland, in his first full season at the helm, are looking every inch Grand Slam contenders now, even if they do have to go to Twickenham in a fortnight’s time and Paris on the final weekend.

It is too simplistic, too convenient, to conclude that Gatland’s so-called ‘Warrenball’ blueprint was entirely to blame for the Dublin collapse. He has enjoyed far too much success with the policy for it to just be sent to the shredder.

Gatland sees it as a means by which Wales can play to their strengths, exploit the power and pace that is sprinkled throughout their strongest starting XV.

When ‘Warrenball’ is good, it’s very, very good, and the championships of 2012 and 2013 are the proof.

The problem is when it’s bad, it’s horrid. As Saturday showed us. As countless losses against the best of the southern hemisphere have shown us.

In the past Gatland has dismissed charges that teams have worked Wales out, that they know what is coming, by challenging them to stop it anyway.

Some have failed. Others, like Ireland, have succeeded, but not just because they have won a game of chess fought out beforehand on laptop screens and dressing room white-boards.

Two days ago at the Aviva Stadium, Gatland, quite apart from any tactical limitations on his part, was badly let down by players whose reputations and track records demand they do better.

There was a wholesale lack of composure, a lexicon of unforced errors, the usual poor decisions at key moments, and a galling lack of leadership amid an outfit that had 12 British and Irish Lions in its ranks.

What keeps Wales on the rung below the very best is that they cannot react to unfolding circumstances, there appears nobody with enough trust in his own game-intelligence to call critical shots in the heat of combat when change is needed.

Perhaps Gatland recognises this, perhaps that is why he doesn’t give his players too much to think about.

But while ‘Warrenball’ may not stretch the cerebral powers of those under his command, it does require water-tight execution of the core fundamentals, a solid set-piece, Scrooge-like ball-retention, and snaffling, ferreting superiority at the breakdown.

Welsh players, almost inexplicably, weren’t able to deliver any of these on Saturday – unlike their Irish counterparts – and so they ended up in a cul-de-sac from which there was no escape.

Schmidt’s triumph was one of pragmatism rather than relying on a blanket formula like ‘Warrenball’.

Ireland won because they executed brilliantly their strategy of making Wales turn, Jonny Sexton and Conor Murray’s beautifully weighted kicking the key.

And because they stuck to Schmidt’s instructions to use the rolling maul off lineouts as the primary avenue of attack.

Oh, and also because Peter O’Mahony exerted a quite extraordinary jackaling influence in the battle for every last scrap of possession.

Yes, Schmidt did win his duel with Gatland. Resoundingly.

But pre-match plotting told only half the story. He got his team to execute his strategy, to add up to more than the sum of their parts on the day.

Gatland didn’t, and if truth be told Wales never got close to earning the right to impose ‘Warrenball’ in all its former glory.

Already there have been strong hints about changes for the France game on Friday week, but Gatland may be nearing a crossroads where short-term switches aren’t the solution.

There is a growing school of thought that the thirty-somethings in the squad, the likes of Mike Phillips, Gethin Jenkins and Adam Jones, have gone beyond the peak of their powers.

The jury is out. Gatland has to be certain he has better alternatives, and, as yet, the argument that he has is flimsy.

More than anything though, Gatland needs the nucleus of his team to start doing what world class players are supposed to do – deliver excellence. Consistently.

Until they do – and you have to go back almost a year to the thrashing of England to find Wales’ last top drawer display – all the tactical variations in the world aren’t going to amount to much.

As for Schmidt, he has not reached annual tournament-bossing territory with Ireland yet, but all the signs are that is where he is taking them.

The danger is clear and present. It’s up to Gatland and Wales to react.

If they don’t, their Six Nations crown will turn to thorns and it will be Ireland who go into the 2015 World Cup as the northern hemisphere’s foremost contenders.

And of course, it will be Schmidt who takes charge of the 2017 Lions.

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