Ruddock to reap his reward

Mike Ruddock will soon be offered an extended contract to coach Wales until the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

The WRU are planning to offer Ruddock, along with assistants Scott Johnson, Andrew Hore, and Mike Griffiths, a new deal to keep the successful coaching team together.

Ruddock's current two-year deal expires the day before next season's Six Nations finale.

"We'll be having discussions with them over the next couple of weeks," WRU general manager Steve Lewis told BBC Wales Sport.

"Last year, we gave Mike a two-year contract and he agreed he wanted to keep Scott Johnson and Andrew Hore on board and wanted to bring in Clive Griffiths.

"At that time, those four guys had never actually worked together as a coaching and management team.

"They wanted to find out things about each other. We allowed them to do that and now we will sitting down with them to find out what they've found out about themselves."