Italy bring in highly rated kicking and skills coach ahead of Six Nations

Toyota Cheetahs Kicking and Skills Coach, Albert Keuris, will be assisting the Italian National side from 20 to 28 January as a consultant at the training camp in preparation for the Guinness Six Nations.

Keuris, who will be focusing on skills and kicking, has an sound record coaching the Shimla Varsity Cup Winners in 2015 (77% kicking accuracy), the Toyota Cheetahs in 2016 SuperRugby (81% kicking accuracy), Toyota Free State Cheetah Currie Cup Winners in 2016 (82% kicking accuracy) as well as the 2017 SuperRugby team where he worked with two of the top three kickers in the competition; Niel Marais (89%) and Fred Zeilinga (85%).

In 2017/18 Guinness PRO14 season, Fred Zeilinga won the Golden Boot (85% accuracy), which was the best statistic in a decade of PRO Rugby, with two other players also in the Top 10 with 83% accuracy.

In the 2018 Currie Cup the Toyota Cheetahs had the second highest kicking success in the competition and Tian Schoeman slotted the most conversions in the 2018/19 Guinness PRO14 seasons. In 2019 the Toyota Free State Cheetahs won the Currie Cup with a kicking rate of 80%.

Italy will be facing Wales in their first Six Nations match on Saturday, 1 February under the interim head coach, and former Toyota Cheetahs head coach, Franco Smith.

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