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Northampton Saints are set to make an audacious move to prise Warren Gatland away from Wales following the sacking of coach Jim Mallinder.

Gatland is at the head of a list of big name candidates being drawn up by English rugby’s crisis club after they were turned down by Steve Hansen’s former New Zealand assistant Wayne Smith.

Mallinder got the chop following Saints’ 43-32 European Champions Cup exit against Guinness PRO14 strugglers Ospreys last weekend.

And they went down 32-15 to Steve Tandy’s men in yesterday’s rematch to extend their losing streak to 10.

Northampton benefactor Keith Barwell, the millionaire businessman who has bankrolled the former European champions for years and remains on its board, said they would now sound out Gatland.

Family club Saints are known to be the type of outfit who may appeal to Gatland but he is contracted to Wales until the end of the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

But that hasn’t deterred the east midlanders, with Barwell outlining their plan to attract a top coach, with Scarlets boss Wayne Pivac also on their radar.

“We will start at the top, with people like Warren Gatland,” Northampton mover and shaker Barwell told the Rugby Paper.

“We are looking for someone who can deal with the way rugby has changed dramatically over the last few years.”

Should Gatland be interested – he recently said his focus was on winning the World Cup with Wales – Northampton would have to dig deep to secure his services.

He is on a salary of about £450,000 a year with the Welsh Rugby Union and will also pocket a bumper bonus if he sees out his contract.

The Aviva Premiership club would almost certainly have to better those figures and pay compensation to the union, with a package likely to cost them in excess of £1m, to have any chance of luring him to Franklin’s Gardens.

Gatland revealed at the tail end of last year he had turned down an approach to succeed Dave Rennie as coach of Chiefs for the 2018 Super Rugby campaign.

Rennie moved to Glasgow Warriors this season from the twice Super Rugby champions, who are based in Gatland’s home city of Hamilton and beat Wales last year.

The Kiwi told Chiefs bosses he “would be interested after 2019” but there was “no way” he would leave Wales until after the World Cup.

Since then Gatland has steered the Lions to a commendable drawn Test series with world champions New Zealand, after engineering the conquest of Australia four years ago.

However, Wales haven’t been Six Nations champions since 2013 and posted their worst finish of the Gatland-era, which stretches back nine years, when they came fifth in this year’s title race with only Italy below them.

Rob Howley was in caretaker charge with Gatland on a sabbatical with the Lions. Gatland retook the reins this season and Wales went down to Australia and New Zealand during the autumn Tests, beating Georgia and South Africa.

Gatland, 54, doesn’t plan on seeking an extension to his Wales position, which he took up following the 2007 World Cup shambles and has brought three Six Nations titles, a World Cup semi-final and quarter-final, when his current deal runs out in just under two years time.

A WRU spokesman simply said today: “Warren is contracted to Wales until the end of the 2019 World Cup.”

Pivac has also impressed Northampton with his work at the Scarlets but recently signed a contract extension to remain in west Wales.

Former Bath coach Mike Ford has put his name forward for the vacant position at Northampton and other persons of interest are believed to include ex-England boss Stuart Lancaster, who is doing sterling work with European powerhouses Leinster, and Newcastle’s former Lions and England No.8 colossus Dean Richards.

“We are surprised by how many people have come forward,” added Barwell.