Matt Sherratt does not intend to sign off after three games by wondering. The interim Wales coach insists he does not seek the role on a permanent basis, but, in comments that will surely thrill vast sections of the red-shirted support, he has also pledged to adopt a radically different approach compared to the departing Warren Gatland. And, at the very least, make the national team “enjoyable” to watch again.

Certainly this former primary school teacher’s commitment to a sport that he has never played at a notable level, cannot be questioned.

He discovered on Monday at 8pm that he was being offered the chance to fill in until the end of the Six Nations, because of Gatland’s departure. “A chance I could not turn down,” he said at the Vale Hotel, where he was unveiled at a hastily arranged press conference.

But neither was he about to turn his back on his permanent duties as head coach of the capital’s side.

So he took the Cardiff training session at the Arms Park on Tuesday morning, before hotfooting it across the capital to appear at the introductory press conference a few hours later. Sherratt was still in his Cardiff tracksuit and proceeded to put on an impressive performance under the glare.

He was appropriately complimentary about Gatland – the three-time Grand Slam winner who agreed to leave on the back of a national record of 14 defeats in succession – but displayed his own resolution by pledging to breathe fresh air into what is a thoroughly toxic atmosphere, following Saturday’s defeat in Rome which made a second successive wooden spoon seem almost inevitable.

Fair enough, Sherratt might leave in five weeks with the count having risen to 17 reversals. But he swears there will be a few highlights in the process.

“I do believe that we have a duty so that people enjoy watching rugby,” Sherratt said. “I’m pretty set on how to play and it’s not going to be anything different to the style we play at Cardiff. That is what I genuinely believe in – it’s what I am passionate about.

“I’ll never forget, I took my boy to three games last year. We went to a Liverpool watch, a Hundred [cricket match] at Glamorgan and he absolutely loved them both. But then I took him to a rugby game – and he asked if we could leave on 55 minutes. It was a kick-fest. I actually thought, ‘how sad is it that there is a 12-year-old who loves sport and wants to leave a rugby game?’

“Look, I’m at the stage of my career when it’s important to me that people want to come and enjoy watching a team play.”

It promises to be a huge departure, albeit only temporarily. A West Countryman who never played rugby to any notable level, he was on Gloucester’s books but failed to earn a first-level start.

The father-of-two is the first Englishman (although he does have a Welsh mother) to sit in the Dragons’ hot seat, although he insists he will know his side’s national anthem by the time they face Ireland at the Principality Stadium a week on Saturday. “It’ll be on YouTube, tomorrow,” he quipped.

If Sherratt has time, that is. He has decided to be at the helm with Cardiff on Saturday night for their United Rugby Championship test in Galway against Connacht. “I will travel back on Sunday and meet the squad,” he said. “I’ll probably get four sessions with them.”

A bizarre build-up for the visit of the world’s top-ranked team, but nothing in Welsh rugby appears normal at this juncture. To the uninitiated, Sherratt might sound like a left-field choice, yet, in fact, the 48-year-old was probably the ideal candidate, because of his standing with so many members of the national squad.

Sherratt has been in charge at the Arms Park – the club ground that sits in the shadows of the Principality Stadium – since 2023 and in his 18 months has impressed as the side have, at least, shown an upward trajectory from the depths.

The Cardiff appointment was seen as an overdue reward for a career that actually began as a primary school teacher in his home county of Gloucestershire. Sherratt’s on-pitch experience did not amount to very much – a solid player at Cinderford – but from the moment he was plucked from St Matthew’s in Stroud by the Rugby Football Union as a development officer in 2000, he was marked down in cone-land as an innovator for the future.

He was employed by Twickenham HQ for six years, before joining Worcester Warriors as the leader of the then-Premiership club’s academy. Intriguingly, the head coach at Sixways during that time was Mike Ruddock, the last Wales head coach to leave midway through the Six Nations in 2006.

Sherratt, an affable and hugely popular character, moved across to Bristol as attack coach and, from his association with Danny Wilson, made his way across the Severn in a journey that has produced a seemingly fantastical destination. A backs and attack coach with Cardiff and the Ospreys, Sherratt has been involved with Wales before, when being seconded as a temporary assistant in 2016.

As he stated, Sherratt is known for his attack-minded attitude with an expansive approach. Diminutive in stature, but clearly offering a big ambition, he has just walked into the job of his life. Wales are 200-1 for the Triple Crown this year. The challenge is set.