Smal wants to raise the bar

AS A no-nonsense flanker in his native South Africa, a nation noted for the size and power of its forwards, Gert Smal was a hard man in a hard environment; judging by his comments in Jury’s Hotel in Cork yesterday, where the Irish team is based this week, Gert is just as hard a man off the field.

Following on yet another powerful performance by the Irish pack in this season’s Six Nations, a full-on war of attrition that laid the foundations for a bone-crunching win against an England side that came to frustrate, as the new forwards coach for Ireland, Gert has come in for lavish praise for the way his pack has been performing.

Smal himself however, doesn’t appear to be nearly as impressed as everyone else. “We probably look at these things a little differently to you guys [in the media],” he said.

“We go into finer detail and there’s still a lot of room for improvement.” But what of the performance of the oft-derided — even at home — Marcus Horan and John Hayes in the front row, more than holding their own against the much-vaunted England pair of Andrew Sheridan and Phil Vickery, having already seen off the French and the Italians in turn? Surely that’s worthy of note? Again, no give. “It’s nice to go into a game where you’re underdogs, but we’re always going to look at ways where we can improve, in the front row as well. We’re not there yet, but in time, I believe we’ll develop into a much better unit.”

A tough-taskmaster then, no question, tough on himself and tough on those in his charge — just what the doctor ordered for an Irish team yet to reach its full promise.

“Satisfied with the progress.” That was as far as Gert would go. “But I’m not happy yet; there are some goals we’re still looking at, areas where we have to improve if we’re to become a champion team.”

He would know something about that. Where the major goal in Ireland this season is to try to break a hoodoo that has lasted since 1948 and win a second Grand Slam, in relative terms that’s small potatoes to Smal. As an assistant coach to Jake White in France in 2007, when South Africa defied long odds to win their second World Cup, he has already faced, and overcome, an even greater challenge. The knowledge he gained during that experience and the knowledge gained during his own lengthy playing career is now being brought to the Irish setup. Complacency has no place in that environment.

“Irish rugby is very like South Africa, a huge emphasis on forward play. What we would like to see is the guys expanding their game a little bit. Every game we play is a new experience for us all, especially for the coaching staff, it’s good to see how the players react in different situations, and we all learn from that.”

Has that new experience included a change in the way Ireland scrummage? Against three highly respected packs so far — France, Italy, England — Ireland have looked solidly in control, prompting many to suggest that even though it’s only halfway into his first season, Smal has already made alterations to the scrummaging technique.

“No,” he says, “We just put more emphasis on certain things. They’re used to scrummaging in a certain way, you try to change things slowly but surely. You don’t have much time with a national team, you can only change things a little bit at a time, maybe look at changing certain systems.”

Next up for Smal and Ireland is a trip to Edinburgh on March 14, a match many Irish fans see as a formality. Don’t get carried away, advises Smal. “It’s still early days; we haven’t played Wales yet, that’s going to be a big test, but we’re not looking past this weekend. If you look at Scotland, how their pack has been performing, and against Italy especially — that was a very good performance. This week we’re going to have a new challenge, a completely different one, there’s a few things they do differently and we have to prepare for that.”

Scotland will try to put some width to their game. While this won’t in itself guarantee a try-fest, according to Les Kiss — defence coach to the Ireland team and another garnering huge praise lately — it should at least mean we won’t see as much of the “volleyball” style of rugby that so marred the Croke Park spectacle.

“It’s a game where they’ll use the mobility they have in the back row, and it’s a very good one,” says Kiss. “They have mobility across the park, then they have White in the second-row and he’s a six (blindside) as well, so they can shift the ball and they can defend the mid-to-wide channels just as well as we can. I don’t know if that means we negate each other, but certainly there should be opportunities across the park on both sides.”