Ireland’s forward coach Gert Smal targets Springbok line-out
Ireland will hope to exploit their forward coach Gert Smal’s knowledge of the South African line-out as they seek to gain an advantage in the upcoming Test on Saturday 6 November at the Aviva Stadium.
Former South African coach, Smal was recruited by the Irish head coach Declan Kidney as part of his team in 2008 and he was praised for his role in Ireland’s last two victories over the Springboks in Dublin.
In the 2009 Test, the Irish team had worked out the calls in the Springbok line-out and Irish lock Paul O’Connell was significant in constantly stealing ball from Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha, who are regarded as the best second row pairing in the world.
Smal admitted that the Irish will hope to exploit his knowledge of the Springboks line-out calls after it worked so well last season.
“Because I worked with the (Springboks) team for a lot of years I know how the line-out works, and I organize the line-out contesting sessions as such, so that we’ve got good speed to look for certain triggers and just no grey areas. We want to go full-out
and contest and see how many balls we can win,” said Smal.
The forward’s coach accepted that it was highly likely the Springboks would have a number of new variations and calls in the line-out after the Irish dominated them in that area in the last Test.
Smal said, “Obviously if they think we know the calls then they will most probably change it for this game, and come with different variations. I think Victor [Matfield] mentioned it already to the press in South Africa, so we expect something new.”
The forwards coach will be eager to record another victory over his native South African, but he has warned the Irish team that the Springboks will be hurting.
South Africa were heavily criticised in last year’s Autumn Internationals and this year’s disastrous Tri Nations.
Smal said, “We’ll just have to see and prepare as well as we can and contest as well as we can in the game.”
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