Warren Gatland admits his job is on the line as he prepares Wales for the 2025 men's Six Nations.
Wales endured a torrid 2024, failing to win a single Test match. The Welsh Rugby Union conducted an end-of-year review, which saw Nigel Walker leave his role as the WRU's executive director of rugby. But Gatland stayed and on Monday, he named his squad for the forthcoming championship.
The group blends the returning experience of Josh Adams, Taulupe Faletau and Liam Williams with fresh faces, but either way, Gatland knows full well he needs results in this Six Nations, which Wales begin with a game away at France on Jan. 31.
When asked if his job is on the line, Gatland said: "Absolutely. Yeah. You know, there's been a lot of discussions and debate about that. I'm pretty well aware of, uh, the situation that, that we're in as a group of coaches and we've just got to go out there and work hard and, and look to show improvements and perform."
Gatland said the decision to omit Gareth Anscombe came down to looking at younger fly-halves with an eye on the 2027 Rugby World Cup while Gloucester's Max Llewellyn was unlucky to miss out as Gatland favoured other inside centres.
The team will be captained by Jac Morgan, who gets the honour ahead of Exeter's Dafydd Jenkins who skippered Wales a year ago into the 24 championship.
"Jac was one of the captains in World Cup [with Dewi Lake] and captain of Ospreys as well and we know they did a really good job," Gatland said.
"I think the three players that we've used in their captaincy role in terms of Dewi, Jac and Dafydd, they're all three young men with a huge amount of potential and great leadership and potential in terms of the squad too. Any one of those three could do a great job for us."
Wales head to one of the tournament favourites on Jan. 31 looking to snap this losing run. Gatland admitted there is some trepidation about the fixture but he is optimistic his side will get off to a good start.
"Probably playing France first up is not a bad thing for us to do," he said. "They tend to take a little bit of time to get going in a Six Nations.
"So getting them first up and hopefully we can replicate what happened in 2019 (Wales won 24-19 in Paris). Hopefully we can get off to good start."