RWC 2015: Wales coach Warren Gatland urges his players to take risks against South Africa

Kiwi insists players must learn from their defeat to Australia ahead of quarter-final clash with Springboks

Warren Gatland revealed that the Welsh coaching staff had been critical about the players’ decision-making this week (AFP)

Warren Gatland loves to pick a theme, or a key facet, during the week before each and every international game. For England it was physicality, against Fiji it was for the players to maintain their intensity while the message ahead of Australia, which failed to entirely filter through come game time, was having the freedom to express themselves.

At the unveiling of each match-day squad, Gatland carries a sheet of Welsh Rugby Union-headed paper with the key messages he wants to get out to the wider world typed up. This week, the theme is simple and one suspects something that has been drummed into his players from the moment they carried their battered and bruised bodies to the Twickenham changing rooms following the 15-6 defeat to Australia.

Gatland has told his team, in no uncertain terms, that they messed up in failing to get over the Wallaby try line despite a two-man advantage for seven minutes of the game and encouraged them to take greater risks against South Africa in order to book their passage to a second consecutive World Cup semi-final.

The squad castigation, though, has done nothing to dent the confidence of a close-knit group. Three days before their latest match at Twickenham – meaning they will have played as many games there as England this World Cup – a majority of the team headed out on a team-bonding session to Thorpe Park.

“We’ve been pretty critical of the players,” said Gatland. “We’ve been really hard on the players in terms of making the right decisions at this level. I think you’ve got to be hard on the players as there’s a huge amount at stake.”

Gatland and his coaching team have been focusing on making decisions under pressure, a repeated mantra, it has to be said, of his seven-year tenure.

His trick to ensure Wales do not suffer a second defeat of this World Cup and therefore a premature return to Cardiff, is for his players to throw caution to the wind against the Springboks.

Tyler Morgan currently plays for Newport-Gwent Dragons (Getty)

“At this level it’s about taking risks,” he said. “You’ve got the best players in the world and if you look at some of decisions they make, it’s high risk, high reward. The best players in the world look at percentages and risk and often make the right decision. That’s what we talked about with players this week.”

There is a risk element to his own team selection in naming Tyler Morgan at outside centre, the 20-year-old, who was not in the original squad, making what will be only his third appearance in a Wales shirt.

Four years ago, he was watching Wales’ quarter-final win over Ireland at home with his father having just completed his GCSEs and is surprised by his own meteoric rise, although not fazed by the enormity of the occasion.

There is an irony that Morgan should be selected at the expense of James Hook, a player Morgan idolised and had a poster of on his wall growing up.

“It’s pretty unreal,” he said of his selection. As for the step-up, he added: “I think I get over things pretty quickly. I always seem to get chucked in the deep end. My first game in the [Welsh] Premiership was a Cross Keys derby and my first Pro12 was Judgement Day [at the Millennium Stadium] and my first international was Ireland, who were second in the world at the time and they’ve all been starts as well.”

Morgan, who played against Fiji, was rested against Australia because of a hamstring strain but is one of three changes from the Wallabies game. In the pack, Dan Lydiate, who missed last weekend with a damaged eye socket, and Gethin Jenkins, who was rested as a precaution and is a player Gatland called “the best loose head in the field in world rugby”, come into the starting line-up

As a result, it means that seven of the eight-man pack that beat South Africa 12-6 last November are selected, the one difference being Luke Charteris starting instead of Jake Ball.

For Charteris’ fellow lock, Alun Wyn Jones, it will be a 100th international appearance having played six times for the British and Irish Lions as well as 93 times for his country. His take on the historic achievement was simply “I don’t look at numbers”.

We didn’t beat a southern-hemisphere team at the last World Cup, so that’s a target

&#13; <p>Wales captain, Sam Warburton</p>&#13;

Whether Wales’ injury-ravaged squad have enough left in the tank to get over the line against South Africa is another matter. Were they to win, it would surely top the achievement of reaching the last four at the 2011 World Cup.

Gatland does not quite see it that way: “Potentially, perhaps. Coming out of that pool was tough and to beat South Africa would be an awesome achievement. We’re not ready to go home yet and the players aren’t ready to. We feel at the moment we’re in a good place mentally and played some pretty good rugby.”

Gatland’s captain, Sam Warburton, who reverts back to No 7 following Justin Tipuric’s demotion to the bench, is more certain with how he regards this weekend’s game in London.

“I think it would be a better achievement than four years ago,” said Warburton. “I thought getting out of the group was as hard as getting to the semi-finals. And we didn’t beat a southern-hemisphere team at the last World Cup, so that’s a target.”

South Africa have looked a much more settled side since their astonishing defeat to Japan in their opening pool game in Brighton and will arguably pose Wales’ most physical threat to date.

But Warburton backed his players not to buckle under the pressure. He said: “We have so many guys that have been involved in Lions Tests, World Cups and Grand Slam games. We just need to make sure that we’re ready.”

Who is Tyler Morgan?

Born 11 September, 1995, Newport

Career Centre began with Newport in 2013 and now plays for Newport-Gwent Dragons. He was part of the Wales squad in this year’s Six Nations and made his debut against Ireland in August. His only other cap was against Fiji in the pool stages earlier this month.