Warren Gatland disappointed the contingent of journalists who travelled from England for Wales's team announcement this week by not hanging around after his unusually brief top-table session, which was largely taken up by questions from television reporters.

The Wales coach used subsequently to give interviews for the print media which, in the digital age, want something for the morning that will have a fresh feel. The last time he did so was before the Six Nations fixture against England in 2011, when he calculatedly launched a grenade in the direction of Dylan Hartley by questioning the England hooker's temperament.

In 2010, he had made tart remarks to a huddle of hacks about England's style of play and the year before, most notably of all, he had said that Ireland were the team his players most disliked. This incited a furore that developed into a diplomatic incident, with the Irish at one stage threatening to demand he be removed from the Lions' management team for that summer's tour to South Africa.

He was not for speaking on Tuesday, scampering away with a sidestep he had not been renowned for as a player. He has said all he wanted to even if, by Gatland's standards, it amounted to not much squared.

Given where Wales are, Gatland does not need to do any winding-up or gloat about what happened to England during the World Cup and in the weeks afterwards. His focus is on his own team and securing what would be a notable victory on Saturday.

There is a perception that the plaudits Wales have received in the last five months, starting with their one-point defeat to South Africa in their opening World Cup match, are premature. What have they won and who have they beaten?

They lost to South Africa, France and Australia in the World Cup and went down again to the Wallabies in Cardiff in December. Apart from Ireland, twice, who have they beaten of note in a run of eight victories in their last 12 matches?

The run started with successes in the World Cup warm-ups against England, the 2007 finalists, and Argentina, who finished third in that year's tournament. Wales had targeted defeating South Africa, not that anyone took much notice of them given they had managed the feat only once in 105 years, but they were within a disputed decision not to award James Hook a penalty from winning.

They then beat Samoa, something they had not managed to do in the 1991 and 1999 World Cups, when they enjoyed home advantage, and after enjoying themselves against Namibia they thrashed the side that knocked them out of the 2007 tournament at the end of the group stage, Fiji, to qualify for the last eight for only the third time since the inaugural event.

Their high point was the victory over Ireland in the quarter-final in Wellington, a tactical triumph when they played with the thrust, pace and width they have employed in the Six Nations. While they lost to France in the semi-finals, they played the last hour with 14 men after Sam Warburton was sent off and they scored the only try of the match.

Australia in the play-off was a reverse of the 1987 meeting between the sides at that stage, when it was the Wallabies who were the most deflated at failing to make the final. Wales kept going, but they had no specialist open-side to replace Warburton and compete with David Pocock and they missed the injured outside-half Rhys Priestland profoundly.

Both Wales and Australia were below strength in Cardiff last December, but that game was an opportunity missed and it did raise questions about whether Wales, who went into the Six Nations with numerous injuries including four players in the front five, would need time to recover the momentum they had developed at the World Cup.

Victories over Ireland and Scotland would suggest not; but Saturday will show where Wales are, whether they are merely the best of the rest or capable of managing expectation and defeating a side above them in the world rankings in a fixture they have won only once since 1988.

Gatland's silence is worth more than words. He can build up England and talk about how they have rediscovered their team ethic under Stuart Lancaster. Or he could point to their failure to show much in attack so far or the way they struggled to finish off the two sides who have become the perennial wooden-spoon battlers. But Wales are the focus this week because they do appear to be on the cusp of something significant and sustainable.

Their game is more developed than England's, as it should be given that their management team has been in place for four years, but they are also showing that skill can flourish in a pressure environment. If there were times against both Ireland and Scotland when their grip on the game was loose, they showed a mental strength absent from Wales sides for most of the years since the end of the 1970s to complement their skill.

There is a calmness about Wales, a quiet assurance and self-belief. Which is not to say they will win at Twickenham: England came to Cardiff in 1989 and 1993 as firm favourites only for their composure to desert them. Saturday will be about more than the rugby Wales produce: it will show whether, like the best teams, they are able to rise above the occasion and the build-up to assert themselves. They are standing at the gate and face probably their most significant 80 minutes under Gatland.

It remains a struggle for Robinson



It is also a significant weekend for Scotland and their coach, Andy Robinson. Defeat against France on Sunday would leave them in another battle to avoid the wooden spoon.

The Six Nations has turned into a two-tier tournament with Wales, Ireland, France and England winning the title between 2008 and 2011 while Scotland and Italy filled the bottom two positions in those years.

It was in 2006 that Scotland last won more than one match in a Six Nations campaign and in their last 11 championship matches against their old Five Nations colleagues at Murrayfield, they have scored just one try.

One of Scotland's official hospitality providers overdid the spin this week on its website when it said: "After a thrilling World Cup in 2011, Scotland will be hoping to impress their home fans upon their return to Murrayfield in the Six Nations 2012 at the Scotland v France."

Thrilling is an interesting word to describe a World Cup campaign in which Scotland failed to qualify for the quarter-finals for the first time, and the defeat to England in Edinburgh this month seems to have been airbrushed.

Robinson has responded to defeat against Wales in Cardiff in the last round by making four changes for the visit of France. A criticism of him when he was in charge of England was that he tended to overreact after defeats or bad performances.

He does not have the depth of players in Scotland that he had then, but he still likes to tinker. The selection of Stuart Hogg at full-back is reward for the impact he made against Wales after coming on as a replacement, as Robinson keeps searching for the formation behind that will turn possession into tries.

Scotland have come on under Robinson, but mainly at forward. They dominated the match against England in terms of territory and possession, but the more ball they had, the less dangerous they looked. They prepared well for Wales, but at the moment they needed to climb a rung, they were unable to, and it was Wales who pulled away after a tight opening 40 minutes.

It is tough for Robinson. Scotland only have two professional teams, and while both Edinburgh and Glasgow have made strides this season, the game north of the border is hardly vibrant.

The Six Nations as a tournament could do with Scotland beating France, and in a manner which suggested it would be more than a one-off, and if would offer welcome respite for a coach who has clearly made a strenuous effort to reverse a long decline.

Tough for Italians in Dublin



And then there is Italy, who have finished at the bottom for the last four years, with just three victories in that time. They had a chance against England in the last round, only to give away a try at the very moment they needed to take a grip on the game.

They are in Dublin on Saturday and have never beaten Ireland in the Six Nations, although they have come close in Rome. The Azzurri have chosen the South African Tobias Botes at outside-half in place of Kris Burton, which would appear to lessen their goal-kicking threat.

Botes made a hash of two medium-range penalties against England having come on for Burton moments after the latter had landed a kick to put Italy 15-6 ahead.

Burton had had an erratic game, threatening the line but missing two penalties to touch. The second occasion came just before he kicked three points and seemed to be the reason he was hauled off, but Botes made no impact, unlike two of England's replacements, Lee Dickson and Ben Morgan.

They both lifted the pace of the game, Dickson by being decisive and Morgan by breaking tackles and getting over the gainline. They were in line to be named in England's starting line-up for Saturday, but a factor, perhaps, in both their contributions and Botes's woe was the time they came on to the field.

The Italy No8 Sergio Parisse, the game's dominant figure in the opening 45 minutes, had just been injured after being tackled by Tom Croft off the ball. He seemed to take 10 minutes to get over it, during which time England became ascendant.

All in it together?



The International Rugby Board gathers next week in Dublin with the World Cup, and how its profits should be shared out, at the top of the agenda.

The rugby committee, which includes union chief executives, meets on Thursday, four months after a particularly stormy encounter in Auckland when tempers became frayed.

The chief executive of the New Zealand Rugby Union, Steve Tew, had raised the temperature when he warned that his governing body would not be able to afford to send the All Blacks to England to take part in the 2015 World Cup because of the revenue they lost in a year when the tournament was held.

He wanted the International Rugby Board to investigate ways of relaxing the commercial restrictions on unions during a World Cup to help them generate money, using football as a model.

Not all his opposite numbers agreed with him and one pointed out, much to Tew's disgust, that his union was able to get through a World Cup year relatively unscathed financially. But it emerged that the only two of the major unions who did not take a hit were Scotland and Argentina, who both operated from lower bases than the rest.

Board officials have spent the last four months looking at ways of changing the rules, while protecting the pot reserved for developing countries. The spirit of compromise is likely to prevail.

It may not in another contentious issue – the timing of the 2015 tournament. England want it to kick off in early September but the Sanzar unions and Argentina want it to start at the end of the month, so that their championship can be played in its entirety.

And there is the issue of whether Wales will be allowed to play any of their pool matches in Cardiff, with the Millennium Stadium one of the grounds being used in the tournament. England say it would help maximise ticket revenue, but there is a concern, enhanced by the strong showing in New Zealand last year of Gatland's men, that it would give the Welsh an unfair advantage in a tournament that has only one host.

Before all that, the executive committee and the board of Rugby World Cup Ltd will meet on Wednesday. The latter will be sparky with two long-serving directors on the latter, Syd Millar and Bill Beaumont, set to be removed. They are resisting but, since Bernard Lapasset's re-election as IRB chairman, the tide is going out on the home unions and one of their old foes, Australia's John O'Neill, is set to benefit.