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.