Wales v Ireland: Gerry Thornleytalks to the Welsh coach, who is passionate about his role and is not afraid to make the odd bold prediction or two

Rugby being Wales's national game, inspired and hampered as they are by the richest of histories, coaching the national team can be one of the best jobs on the planet, or one of the worst. As many of Gareth Jenkins's predecessors can testify, not least Mike Ruddock, you can go from freedom-of-the-city to being chased by a lynch mob. There isn't much of a middle ground.

Of course, lurching from triumph to disaster, from the extremes of pessimism to optimism, goes with the terrain in the valleys. "Yes," Jenkins interrupts, all too knowingly. "That has to change," he repeats several times, "and that's one of the things I am absolutely conscious of, that we have to come off this bumpy road on to a one-divot road. Consistency has got to be something we have to bring into our game, that we have to level out and we have to get that into our performance."

It's becoming this way in Ireland, for with increased success and profile comes increased expectation. With each passing year, Irish players and coaches live in more and more of a pressure vault but if it's any solace, no national supporters appear to jump aboard the emotional rollercoaster quite like the Welsh public. Perhaps it goes with being a small country in which, à la New Zealand, rugby is its greatest source of global identity.

"Win or lose, the one thing they do is get hugely disappointed but in five days they think you're the best team in the world again. Honestly. Believe me," Jenkins says, smiling and emphasising his words to hammer home the point.

Yet you put it to him that Jenkins isn't helping by boldly targeting winning the World Cup in 2007; that on the eve of his first Six Nations campaign, he is creating a noose for his own neck. "Yeah, sure, of course I am, of course I am, and I mean that. But I think there comes a time in Wales - from a playing point of view and it's the responsibility of the regional coaches as well - when we've got to get off the fence, we've got to stop being comfortable, our aspiration has to change.

"We've got to stop hiding and putting my head in the noose by saying we want to win the World Cup for God's sake, that's got a lot of connotations, for me especially. But that statement allows us to debate that. If we don't do it, so be it. But it's out there."

So it was a cold, conscious decision to go public with such a grandiose ambition. On the flip side, by Jenkins's own admission, it came with a stated admission that "if we played it (the World Cup) at this moment, we could never even think of it. But we looked at it as a process that actually measured ourselves against the best performances in the world. We've got a measuring system, so that we clearly know at the end of every game we play how close we're getting to those standards. So it was more than a statement, it's a process".

As is the way of things, the rejuvenated feel-good factor in Welsh rugby will ultimately depend on results, but if nothing else Jenkins has managed to put egos and personal rivalries aside to have regular debriefings between the regional and national coaching set-ups. The Welsh have always been noted tenors, but now, for once, many of their disparate parts - certainly in the upper professional tier - are singing off the same hymn sheet after years of internal fighting and bickering, be it between the clubs and the union, the players and management, the regions and the national team, or any mix of the above.

"We've come out of that black hole and I think we've got ourselves organised," he ventures. "Around us the co-operation is more positive, the feel-good factor about relationships is better, the union has got its trust back with the regions, there's comfortable dialogue now, not sort of in-your-face stuff. So yes it's good, and that should be reflected, surely, in the way your national team plays."

In all of this, it is assuredly a huge help that Jenkins has served his time within the club/regional structure with Llanelli and the Scarlets. "I think that has helped, I've got to say. To do the things that I feel Wales needs to do now, to join up really the regions and ourselves into a partnership - we're calling it the regional partnership - the time is right for that to happen and the opportunity is there now, which is great."

Cynics may view it as window dressing, with little tangible reward for it. "The first thing is a week-to-week dialogue with, and visits into, the regions by all the Welsh coaching staff. Part of our working environment will be in the regions; coffee, how the game's gone, what you're working on, things that concern us internationally, taking information back from the international environment and sharing that with them, and it's just that sharing thing, that awareness.

"For example, from the autumn internationals to the Six Nations, we don't touch a rugby player. All we do is watch him. Now, move forward, and ideally you'd like to think that the identified requirements of the autumn campaign can be put into the process of the regions. The contact area is an issue for us, for example. The first and second persons into contact, for example, is a problem in our game. If our regions are prepared to understand that, and incorporate that into their playing and thinking, then we'll have addressed things between our campaign that before we'd have had to address coming back into the Six Nations. I see it as a working environment, with both parties taking responsibility for putting in the building blocks for performances."

In the midst of all this, his former charges at Llanelli have blazed a trail in qualifying for the last eight of the Heineken European Cup with six wins from six in a tough pool (thereby accentuating the pressure on Jenkins himself in a roundabout way); the Ospreys came within a last-ditch kick of joining them and as the Magners Celtic League table underlines, the depth of competitiveness amongst the Welsh regions is stronger than in their Celtic cousins. "We are pleased, we are pleased. We're competitive across the four regions and that's good. We haven't been there for a while. We've always had one or two, but we're raising the bar."

Ask him what has brought this about, and he cites the Grand Slam of two years ago. "Confidence is probably one of the most misunderstood factors in rugby. Belief. There are a lot of good teams out there. When you believe you are a good team, that's half the battle, and the Six Nations has done Welsh rugby a major amount of positives. And since then I've sensed in Wales that the players have another level of belief. They've touched something. They've succeeded in something and I think actually there's a realisation that we can be competitive. We haven't got to worry any more about the French, they're not bogey men any more," he says, though at first, with his Welsh lilt, it sounded like boogie men.

Much was made, and understandably, of the spate of injuries which ravaged Wales like no other side last year. Yet when push comes to shove they've again been hit by what Jenkins euphemistically calls "a few bumps", witness the absence today of Shane Williams, Tom Shanklin, Sonny Parker, Lee Byrne, Mark Jones and Gareth Delve through injury.

Throw in the ERC's punitive three-match suspension of Gareth Thomas for a gesture with a finger and you wonder if Wales are cursed again. After all, as one Welsh scribe noted ironically, how can it be that Martyn Williams received a three-week ban for headbutting an opponent on live television, and Thomas a week longer for raising a finger. Perhaps having it become a Kodak moment was the former Welsh and Lions' captain's biggest crime.

All of this, however, is offset by an improved strength in depth. "As much as I'm carrying bumps now, which I don't want to have, I've got players now I can select who are competitive, and I think that's the difference. We've got a third line now we can touch on. I think we had two lines before, so that in itself is a different base."

In the midst of all this, Jenkins has warmly welcomed an opening match against a team he has eulogised even more warmly as favourites for the Six Nations. "For obvious reasons. The way you competed in the Southern Hemisphere last summer and your form against New Zealand. God, you touched results there, nearly. Your autumn, for God's sake. And what you've got is a balanced team, a mature team, a team going into its second World Cup really, you've got players who've won European championships in their domestic environment. It's all there. You've got a very experienced coach, you've got a quality game, your game is clearly Irish, everybody understands it, it's there for everybody to know, so there's a lot of factors in there at this present time that we envy really."

Phew. Already in a state of heady expectation, spend some time in Jenkins's company and you can only come to the conclusion that tomorrow's game could be one of the matches of the year.

"Nobody really understands us. On our day we're capable of beating anybody, and there are days then when we just don't turn up. So my challenge this year with the Welsh team is to make sure that every time we play, we turn up."