Ex-Ireland coach spends day watching England get ready to take on Wales
Not since the 2015 World Cup exit to Argentina has former Ireland defence coach Les Kiss been spotted on the international scene. However, that gap was bridged this week when the current London Irish coach turned up at England training on Wednesday.
The presence of Kiss at England camp in the company of Eddie Jones wasn’t as high profile a rendezvous as the sight earlier this week of John Terry, the former England and Chelsea footballer, looking on as Jones’ charges trained for their seismic Six Nations clash on Saturday away to Wales.
However, the sight of the Australian chatting away to his fellow countryman in the week of a big Test match was a sharp reminder of the type of elite rugby workplace that Kiss used to be employed in.
Kiss was a vital part of Ireland’s Six Nations title wins in 2009, 2014 and 2015, the ’09 success ending the enormous gap in between Grand Slams for the Irish that stretched back to 1948.
But he has had a difficult time since stepping away from an Ireland job that covered 82 matches across seven years and enjoyed a 61.5 percent win rate under his two coaches, Declan Kidney and Joe Schmidt.
After serving a lengthy apprenticeship in the IRFU system since his initial recruitment by Kidney in 2008, Kiss felt ready for running a team on his own terms. But his three seasons in charge as director of rugby at Ulster were a disaster.
The club’s form spiralled rather than improved and the rookie boss was cut loose in January 2018 following his third successive failure to reach the knockout stages of the Champions Cup.
Kiss wasn’t out in the cold for long. His old Test boss Kidney invited him along to help with the London Irish project he started last March. The Exile club is now on course for a return next season to the Premiership.
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Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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