WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Intelligent, innovative and willing to seek input from dissenting voices, British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland seemed destined for the upper echelons of the coaching world from an early age.
A robust, skilful hooker who had been a loose forward until he was 21, the 49-year-old New Zealander's international career was stymied by Sean Fitzpatrick and he appeared only 17 times for the All Blacks but in no tests.
The trained teacher was instead a stalwart of Waikato provincial rugby and played against the 1993 Lions, scoring a try as the province hammered the tourists 38-10.
He had just as significant an impact off the field, according to former Waikato and All Blacks front row colleague Graham Purvis.
"He always had coach written all over him, I think," Purvis told Reuters via telephone from Dunedin, where he now works as the manager of the Otago Highlanders Super Rugby side.
"He was pretty serious about his game. He was always a deep thinker and wasn't afraid to bring new innovations to things."
One such innovation was adapting a game being played by the children at the school where he taught and introducing it successfully to club, provincial and then All Blacks training.
"He was always thinking about what we should or shouldn't be doing and did like to toss around ideas that's for sure," Purvis said of Gatland's approach.
"And he did seek out alternative views. That is all part of his process."
Gatland began coaching his local club team before he moved to Ireland's Galwegians, something that had quite a bit to do with Purvis, the former All Black said.
VERY PROUD
When the All Blacks were on tour in 1989, they met officials from the Connacht club over "quite a few beers".
One of the club's officials was keen on the tighthead prop staying in Ireland, trying until late into the night to convince Purvis and ringing him again early the next morning.
"I told him I had already committed to play in France but he wouldn't take no for an answer and he said 'we really need a prop'," Purvis said with a chuckle.
"So I asked Gats 'are you keen to stay on and play for a team here?'. He said 'hell, yeah'.
"I asked him 'have you ever played tighthead prop?' And he said 'nah'. So I said 'I'll give you a couple of lessons before the end of the tour' then told the guy that Gats was keen and that he played tighthead prop all the time.
"He ended up playing for them, then coaching them and he moved on from there.
"So he took that chance from a couple of beers and an early morning telephone call and turned it into a multi-million dollar coaching career.
"I'm very proud of him to make the most of that opportunity."
From Galwegians, Gatland coached Connacht for three seasons before he got his first taste of test rugby in a stint in charge of the Ireland side from 1998 until 2001.
He then moved to London where he took a talent-laden but underperforming Wasps team to three successive English titles and the Heineken Cup.
Gatland returned home to coach Waikato where he introduced the rush defence developed by Shaun Edwards at Wasps to New Zealand and took the team to the provincial title in 2006.
He served as a technical advisor to the Waikato Chiefs before he took over as Wales coach following the 2007 World Cup, leading them to Six Nations grand slams in 2008 and 2012 with a style of play that rewarded running rugby and scoring tries.
"Wales are not a 10-man team and I expect the Lions will be the same," said New Zealand rugby writer and sports historian Phil Gifford.
"Either way, this is going to be one hell of a series."
(Editing by Nick Mulvenney)
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