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Kiss and Goosen emerge as Edinburgh candidates
By Jamie Lyall
Les Kiss has emerged as a contender to become Edinburgh’s new head coach. The Australian is without a job after the demise of London Irish earlier this month.
Mike Blair announced his intention to step down as head coach of the Scottish club in February, and with the season now over, has signed a deal with Dave Rennie’s Kobe Steelers as attack specialist.
Former Sale Sharks director of rugby Steve Diamond joined Edinburgh on a senior consultancy basis in March, and agreed to oversee the team’s pre-season training while a new supremo is recruited.
Kiss, 58, was an Australian rugby league international and made his name in union as a defensive coaching visionary after switching codes in 2001.
He worked with the Springboks and New South Wales Waratahs before helping Declan Kidney’s Ireland to a first Six Nations Grand Slam in 61 years during 2009. He also contributed to Six Nations titles in 2014 and 2015 under Joe Schmidt.
Kiss’ success with the national team earned him the director of rugby position with Ulster, initially on an interim basis in June 2014, his three-and-a-half-year stint featuring a Pro12 semi-final in 2016.
He reunited with Kidney at London Irish in 2018 and spent the past five years as head coach of the Premiership side, which boasted an illustrious roster of international players and home-grown talent.
Fellow defensive specialist Marius Goosen, who worked under Glasgow boss Franco Smith with Italy, is also understood to be a candidate for Edinburgh.
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Latest Comments
Why would Eben lie? The guy has achieved so much. He saw it as arrogance. Any normal person who plays against the ABs year in and year out would have the same thoughts. Why even talk about the final when you have the biggest game of your lives next week in a stage you have never gotten passed? Rugly is simple in SA. Have fun but the most important thing is respect. I’m not buying any of this misinterpreted nonsense. Eben isn’t English, but no one during that interview was asking what did he say? He's speaking and therefore his understanding is perfectly fine. It was an arrogant thing to say, esp for a team that has never been to a final, never mind a semi. You guys up north can interpret it in a different way if you wish, maybe that s why you don’t win the biggest tournaments.
Go to comments> with Sky TV in New Zealand saying it has seen an 11 per cent lift in overall viewership this year. It’s easy for these kiwi “journalists” to throw around meaningless numbers to make it seem that things are improving, but if you look at the stats behind this 11 percent it says that after 10 rounds of rugby there is only a paltry 160k cumulative viewers in total.. That is on average 16k viewers watching a single round of Super Rugby. I very much doubt any of the other numbers that Gregor so proudly “reports” on.
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