AT LAST, next Sunday offers a chance to scratch an itch, if not quite vengeance for that quarter-final defeat, and in the immediate aftermath nobody scratched harder than Les Kiss.
He gives Wales the utmost credit for their concentration and execution of their game plan on the day, lamenting the unusual errors that blighted Ireland’s best efforts – be it running the ball rather than kicking it, a lost lineout on half-way having fought back to level terms or a blindside defensive error. But he’s not really one for looking back.
“Those things irk you but I’m reluctant to carry the grief and the things that irk you rather than narrowing down, just trying to pick the right things that matter and be driven by that hurt rather than being restrained by something you can’t control anymore.”
Dovetailing his role as defensive coach with his new portfolio as attack coach should further energise him, although it’s not as if he lacks energy.
“He’s very professional, he’s very popular, he’s very positive, he’s got great levels of energy and he’ll bring a lot to the attack,” says the recently-departed team manager Paul McNaughton.
Kiss stresses that it will be a joint coaching effort, not least with greater contributions to the attack from Mark Tainton and Mervyn Murphy. Besides, in many ways it’s an extension of a role that overlaps to some degree.
“Some of the principles marry each other in a way I guess, I look at it that way. I think you can over-intellectualise it. The bottom line in defence, it can be a very difficult day for people. Just ask Bath (against Leinster), ask Northampton (against Munster); just simple things go wrong. (If) You don’t control the pulse of the game at the breakdown then everything is difficult and it’s the same in attack.”
Nor is it as if Kiss can be pigeon holed as one of those out-and-out ex-rugby league defensive coaches, for he has worked as the attack coach of both the Waratahs and the Springboks in a varied and well-travelled career.
“The game has merged so much now,” he says, citing an exchange of kicks in which “defensive kicking and attacking strategies (are) merging”.
He also highlights the greater emphasise on multi-skills in attack and defence, and at the breakdown. “I’ve always worked on the premise, from the days of the Waratahs, (that) whatever number you’ve got on your back you’ve always got a seven in the corner. So you have to have a backrow mentality or a number-seven mentality and our boys are good at that.
“The game has evolved and I think the elements of coaching structures have evolved too you know. Does a defence coach just walk in there and try and change everything? No, it has to merge in some way.”
So much of what Kiss already did, for example, merged with forwards coach Gert Smal, a good mate as well as work mate; hence his relief that Smal is staying put.
“I think he has an exceptional technical analysis and understanding. He has a passion and an energy and an emotion that must prevail otherwise you can be technical. But if it doesn’t have heart and energy, all it is, is a technical execution. The way that he brings that gives us a unique energy.”
Similarly, as in his time with the Springboks, Kiss has become “emotionally invested” during in his time here. “For me it’s no different in Ireland though there’s something that resonates with me at the moment and hopefully does for a while longer. I certainly have an attachment to it, that’s for sure. The guys are an exceptional group to work with, and when you see what the people over in New Zealand brought to that, all these things help to fashion that attachment.”
There’s another aspect to the Kiss character that needs to be explored. As well as being a nice guy and a passionate hard-working coach who is emotionally attached, he is also ambitious, even if he places this in context.
“I’ve always been a driven individual in that way. I am ambitious but I’m patient. My voice in the team, in the whole thing, I hope isn’t overstated. I’ve had a little bit more to say and do but and I’m encouraged by that, I’m driven by it and I’m loving it but in the end I just want the first tackle to be ours to own and the first breakdown for ours to be owned and for the players to find their voice and their talent emerging in the game, because ultimately I’m not a coach.
“I truly believe it doesn’t matter what I know about the game. The only thing that matters is what they can put in place on the field and I don’t think you just get that by being a technocrat. I think you’ve got to work beyond that and understand other parts of the human element of the game as well and where that meets at the right point that they get something out of it as much as I get something out of it.
“I’m ambitious but I’m patient and I’m driven but I won’t let it send me off on a fork road that goes nowhere.”
He’s always been driven for self-improvement for as long as he can remember.
As a relative skinny winger in his rugby league playing days, maybe there was an element of a little ’un competing in a big man’s game. Ultimately though, he reasons; “I just don’t want to sit down and wonder at the end that I didn’t find out. We’ve all got some human element of it that wants to find your own significance in something for yourself.
“I’ve always been a curious person, I’ve inquired about how I think and why I think and what works and what doesn’t work, why people react the way they do, how they understand themselves is important for me, and how they contribute to things. I’ve always been fascinated by that sort of stuff, and that’s what coaching is, isn’t it?”
Kiss attributes this in part to being exposed to so many sports in his homeland from a young age. With two older sisters and two younger brothers who played a little rugby league at under-age level, there was no particular sporting heritage in the family tree.
He began playing when he was eight with Bundaberg High School before fulfilling a desire to “move to the big smoke” after school by moving to Fortitude Valley rugby league club in Brisbane.
“That fashioned my future, yeah. It had a big influence because I was always a competitive bastard and I just wanted to be the best at what I did. That launched me and that’s why I ended up in Sydney post 1985.”
Such is the way of sport, and not only does it continue to fashion his future, but his wife Julei and kids Sophie (18) and Lachlan (15) as well.
His daughter recently decided to continue her third level education in England. “It’s life defining in a way because it doesn’t mean she’s never going back to Australia at some stage but her next three years is committed. So it’s all exciting for her and I guess it made me think about that, critical decisions you make at times.
“But I’m not one to be held back by the past. It’s defining but what I am today and what I am tomorrow is more important. What I am in front of my children in my next meeting with them, when I get home at the weekend, that’s the important time for me. The next time I have to stand with the boys and talk to them about something, they’re the real moments.
“A lot of people talk about leaving a legacy, but I think every conversation should leave a legacy. It sounds weird but what I mean is this, even in my conversations with myself I have to leave something good and worthwhile going forward.
“I’m afraid as anyone else in certain ways but you can either get really wrapped up in your flaws or you can give yourself a break and move forward.
“So I want to take the things out that drive things forward and are driving forces rather than restraining forces, similar to what we were saying about the Welsh match. I don’t think the past is unimportant. I think it is. But nothing can change.
“The only thing that you really have control of is the here and now and what you do now that makes tomorrow something worthwhile.”
IF YOU DIDN�T KNOW, YOU DO NOW . . .
WHILE tournaments such as the Heineken Cup follow the four points for a win format (two for a draw, plus a bonus point for scoring four tries, or for losing by seven or less points), the Six Nations Championship abides by the more traditional scoring system – two points are awarded for a win, with one point for a drawn match.
If two or more teams finish the championship at the top of the table with the same number of points, the winner is decided by scoring difference in all matches.
If the teams still cannot be separated, the team that scored the most tries is declared the champion. If the sides are still deadlocked, the championship title is shared between the teams in question.
