Underappreciated and sometimes ridiculed, Rob Howley seeks to prove a point against old rivals England

Howley may have found himself the butt of numerous jokes down the years but there are strong grounds for embracing his return to the helm of the Welsh national team

Rob Howley takes training with his Welsh side (Getty)

There was a particularly brutal video doing the rounds after Wales’ evisceration at the hands of Australia last autumn, in which a high-pitched Bridgend voice was dubbed over the post-match comments that Rob Howley gave, as he stood where Warren Gatland held court before leaving the WRU to manage the Lions.

“They said, ‘Rob - Warren’s not here, so you have a go, butt,” says ‘Howley’ in the full South Wales vernacular. “So I did, like. I’d rather be working on an ice cream van, I would, like. Second in command. Just putting crushed nuts on ice cream for kids and all that – and giving out the odd Magnum…”

The video was such a source of such national hilarity that it even got an airing on a serious rugby show and it seemed to sum up the uncomfortable relationship that the man who is standing in for Gatland has with his nation. There are strong grounds for embracing Howley’s return to the helm of the national team - not least the 2013 Six Nations title he led Wales to last time he was caretaker, after Gatland had taken a sabbatical to work with the Lions for the first time, which included that mauling of the English. He has also tried to develop the move away from ‘Warrenball’ to a more creative kind of rugby which Gatland started a year ago. Last weekend’s victory against Italy brought the caretaker’s record at the helm to eight wins out of 12, and eight of the last nine, across the two periods in sole charge.

Phil Bennett, who knows what successful rugby likes, puts the way that Howley is criticised down to a form of reverse snobbery. “Robert's the boy from Bridgend and everyone knows him,” is how he sees it. “Warren's Warren. He's a hard man, a million miles from home so he gets on with it and doesn't give a damn. Sometimes being Welsh can work against you. We've sacked so many Welsh coaches…”

Results have not always reflected performances for Howley. Though the recent autumn internationals brought three wins in an autumn series for the first time since 2002, it was an extremely poor South Africa side that Wales put away in November. Though some might welcome the idea of Howley being the independent caretaker, developing a more open rugby, the messages coming out from the players also suggest that it is a struggle to make it work. Captain Alun Wyn Jones has admitted it is to the detriment of the team at times, though the players are trying. "Nobody wants to know how sausages are made. It's a messy business,” is how former Wales captain Gwyn Jones puts it. “But Wales are making sausages in public at the moment."

It doesn’t help that Howley is not exactly a coach for the media age. In the Morgannwg suite of Wales’ Vale Hotel base on Thursday, with the green grass of the Vale of Glamorgan behind him, he spoke solidly and unspectacularly. This was some contrast to the court of fast Eddie Jones in Surrey, characterised on the back of Thursday’s Western Mail in the words defence coach Shaun Edwards had chosen the precious day. “Eddie is like Cloughie.”

Howley is looking to record a second win over the English as the Wales head coach (Getty)

Howley ventured into the foothills of mischief-making only once at his press conference, with his suggestion that Jones had declared on Saturday evening that he would certainly play at the Principality Stadium with the roof closed up, this weekend. “It’s [going to be] closed isn’t it?” Howley asked. Two hours’ drive to the east, Jones was preparing to climb down and admit he wanted the roof off, tetchily refusing to brook questions on the subject. Round 1 to the quiet man.

Understated evidently does not mean stand-offish, where Howley is concerned. He is not one of those coaches who look like they would rather be elsewhere. There were gestures of acknowledgement on Thursday for those he knew among the press ranks. His use of first name terms did not sound like that common coach’s device to ingratiate and, ultimately, seek a good write-up.

Howley and Eddie Jones are worlds apart in terms of their characteristics (Getty)

It was his captain, Alan Wyn Jones, who was wearing the kind of game face an expectant Welsh nation will be looking for this weekend. Would Jones take heart from the 30-3 annihilation Wales put over on England under Howley’s command four years ago and had he been playing the video back? “No” and “No.” Jones didn’t smile much.

The captain was willing to say that the inexperience of the England back row just might present an opportunity. “Yes, if you want to say that, maybe I will say that,” he replied, though there can be no doubt that the fitness of Dan Biggar and George North - about which Howley was unable to be definitive - is infinitely more significant than a roof.

Though there was little chemistry between captain and coach, it is Howley, of course, who has bestowed the captaincy on arguably Wales’ greatest ever lock. It says something for what the 46-year-old brings that Sam Warburton, whom he has stood down as captain, delivered monumentally in the opening fixture in Italy. No player’s carries surpassed Warburton’s total of 26 metres in Rome.

Sam Warburton made the most carries in Wales' Six Nations opener against Italy (Getty)

The Welsh press has being doing its detective work here, all week, piecing together the finer details of the now legendary attempted sting on England here two years ago, when Wales tried to lure Chris Robshaw and Co out on to the pitch and have them standing alone out there, on a landscape the Western Mail described as befitting “Cardiff’s biggest nightclub.” The paper revealed that referee Jerome Garces resolved the impasse, in which Robshaw and Mike Brown refused to budge from the tunnel, by telling the pair that if Wales did not immediately follow them out, then England could march straight back into the tunnel, rather than be submitted to five minutes in the stadium darkness with Labrinth, Tinie Tempah and Jessie J’s music for a soundtrack.

For the Welsh noise and hubris of Tunnelgate 2015, read the Welsh circumspection of Roofgate 2017, which befits the Howley temperament. Victory on Saturday may take the Welsh nation a little closer to feeling the same way and dropping the ridicule.