Gareth Jenkins
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Gareth Jenkins (born 11 September 1951) is a Welsh rugby union coach.
Jenkins played as a flanker for Llanelli RFC, the Welsh B team and the Barbarians. Jenkins also toured Japan with the Welsh national team in 1975, but was not capped. Jenkins coached both Llanelli RFC and the Llanelli Scarlets region from its inception until 2006 when he accepted the position as the coach for the Welsh national team.
Jenkins made over 250 appearances for Llanelli RFC since his debut as a 17 year old. He was a member of the Llanelli team that famously beat New Zealand 9-3 at Stradey Park in 1973.
Jenkins had worked in the Welsh team setup prior to 2006 when he was the assistant Wales coach to Alan Davies. During this period Wales won the 1994-95 Five Nations title.
He has had coached Llanelli RFC to four Welsh Cup victories, a 1992-93 League and cup double making Llanelli the only club to have done this. In 1998-99 and 2001-02 Llanelli won league titles and the regional side ‘Llanelli Scarlets’ won the 2003 Celtic League Championship. However his form in higher competitions was not as solid with repeated failiure of his team to qualify for a european cup final and a history of losing the big games.
In April 2006 Jenkins was named as the new Welsh national coach after the shock resignation of his predecessor Mike Ruddock. Ruddock, who had helped the Welsh team to their first Grand Slam in 28 years, departed his position half way through the 2006 Six Nations Championship causing something of a national scandal. Jenkins had applied for the Welsh coaching job but was deemed not good enough by the Welsh Rugby Union CEO David Moffett and Ruddock (who did not even apply) got the job. Jenkins toured New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions as part of Clive Woodward's coaching team. Following Ruddocks resignation for reasons as yet unclear Jenkins was this time given the post.
Jenkins has come in for criticism from certain sections of the Welsh media due to a poor run of results since becoming Welsh national coach. During Jenkins initial time in charge of Wales they failed to beat any team ranked in the top 10. As of 11th March 2007 Jenkins' record with Wales was:
Played: 10 Won: 2 Drawn: 1 Lost: 7
Although there were some good performances, the only wins came in the November 2006 international series where Wales beat a Pacific Islanders team playing its first match for two years, and Canada. The draw was against Australia in the same series who themselves had been dubbed by some "the worst Australian side ever".
However, Jenkins finally achieved a notable victory with a convincing 27-18 victory against England on 17th March 2007.
