Six Nations, France v Wales: Paul Rees on how the men in red progressed from serial wooden-spoon contenders to competitors, and now under native son Mike Ruddock they are being touted as serious Grand Slam contenders.

It is 27 years since Wales won a Grand Slam. In between they have been slammed grandly several times with every leading union, and a number of lesser lights, enjoying a record romp against a team which collapsed in staggeringly quick time from being among the top four in the world to a laughing stock.

Mike Ruddock is the 13th national coach since his country breezed through the 1978 championship, taking over from Steve Hansen last summer and, after being wooden-spoon contenders for each of the past five campaigns, Wales have started this year's tournament with victories in their opening two matches for only the second time since 1988, the last year they claimed a Triple Crown.

A puff of expectation has risen from the embers of despair, something which Ruddock is not trying to dampen down, and distant are the voices of those who, only a couple of years ago, were calling for England and France to divorce themselves from the Six Nations on the grounds that the Celts no longer had the wherewithal to muster a meaningful challenge. What price a Grand Slam decider between Wales and Ireland in Cardiff on the final weekend of the campaign?

"Going into that game with something on it would be great for all of us," said Ruddock. "We are conscious that if we get things right at Stade de France we can start to think that we are in with a shout of honours at the end of the season."

At first sight, it appears that Ruddock has presided over a remarkably rapid transformation. After winning in Paris in 2001, Wales's only Six Nations victims before the victory over England this month were Scotland and Italy in Cardiff, a desperately fallow period during which they lost 10 internationals in a row.

Hansen came under intense pressure and would have lost his job on the eve of the 2003 World Cup had his side flopped in a friendly against Scotland. But Hansen, who took over from his fellow New Zealander Graham Henry at the beginning of 2002 after a second record defeat to Ireland in three months, did something unique for a Wales coach: he looked to the long-term and replaced fading players, most of whose stars had only flickered intermittently, with hungrier, younger models.

He was derided for perpetually claiming that performances counted for more than results and, as the defeats piled up, the Welsh Rugby Union started twitching. Hansen never wavered, saying his successor was likely to enjoy the fruits of his labours.

"When Mike took over last summer, he appreciated the groundwork which had been laid by Steve and was smart enough to change very little," said the Wales manager Alan Phillips, who had been part of the Hansen and Henry regimes.

"I have no doubt that what we are seeing now is down to Hansen and Henry as well as Mike.

"Mike nearly got the job in 1998. Had he done so, it could have been the ruination of him, because our game was in a mess. It had become a political minefield. We needed someone from outside to come in and bang heads together which Henry, followed by Hansen, did. Between them, they got us on the road to regional rugby.

½ A Welsh coach would have had insurmountable obstacles put in his way and we would have been stuck with the old club system.

"That said, it was right for a Welshman to take over from Steve and what we have seen in the last few months is co-operation between the regions and the national management at a level we have never experienced before."

Wales's captain Gareth Thomas, whose international career was resurrected by Hansen after Henry had despaired of him, agreed with Phillips.

"Mike has not made a massive difference because he has not had to," said the full back who will this afternoon be in the unusual position of flipping the pre-match coin with a club colleague, Fabien Pelous, having joined Toulouse last summer.

"Graham Henry started the ball rolling and Steve Hansen took it on. They deserve great credit for the success we are enjoying now. We had come desperately close in the last three years to claiming a big scalp, just failing at the moment of reckoning on a number of occasions.

"Steve put his faith in a group of players Mike inherited and kept the pressure off us when things got rough. It was right that a Welshman took over from him and everyone is now pulling in the same direction."

Ruddock, who started his senior coaching career at Cross Keys before enjoying success with Swansea and moving to Leinster, was in charge of Newport Gwent Dragons last season. He has involved the management teams of all four regions in the national cause by asking them to monitor the performances of one of their Six Nations rivals over the last four months and give a presentation to the squad at the beginning of the week of Wales's game with the team concerned. And he has brought in individuals to help out in coaching sessions in specific areas.

"We have had no problems getting players released for squad sessions," said Phillips. "There is a sense of togetherness in our game now. Steve picked us up off the floor and was right for us at the time, but we are now at the level when we are looking to go from competitive to successful and a Welshman who understands how our players think is more likely to coax that little bit extra out of them.

"Steve was totally hands-on, involving himself in everything; Mike is more relaxed and happy to delegate, but he is still learning: being an international coach is a totally different ball game."

Wales struggled in the set-pieces under Hansen, a key failing Ruddock has corrected. Against France last year Wales failed to secure the ball on 17 of their scrums or lineouts but they will go into today's game with a far stronger foundation after Ruddock's expert input.

"We have matured as a group of players," said the prop Adam Jones.

"Mike took over at the right moment because we had given notice of what we were capable of. We have become streetwise."

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