Ashfak Mohamed
TODAY, Gert Smal will complete just his second week in his new job as the Western Province director of rugby. We chatted to him yesterday to find out how it has gone so far, and what the way forward is for the Stormers and WP.
How has the first two weeks been in the job?
It’s good, it’s exciting. There is a lot of work to be done behind the scenes, but it’s very exciting. I think the main thing was just to settle the team down. The first week, you are in the middle of the season and the guys are coming back from Australasia. So you just want to settle things down, because a lot of things have been communicated with them as well.
It was important that we just build a solid base. I don’t want to come in there like a bull in a china shop and just change everything, because then this thing will just blow up completely. So this was all kind of a measured approach, but an urgent measured approach.
It was also my first live game that I’d seen of them, and now seeing the game and also sitting down with some of the individual coaches was good – just to see what they struggled with, in terms of the game itself and the dynamics within the team. Still it’s very exciting, and we will get it right.
The Stormers are bottom of the log, and it cannot be a good thing to see. How do you feel about that?
Sometimes it’s just a good cliché, but it is exactly like that, and that’s also how we worked it in the Six Nations when I was in Ireland. The most important thing is the next game – you don’t think about what is going to happen at the end of the season. You just see that you prepare well, and wherever you can, get everybody up and then dust themselves off. And look for new opportunities.
Everybody just has a responsibility, coaches and players themselves as well.
How did the meetings with Allister Coetzee and the coaches go this week, and what do you think is wrong at the moment?
I think it’s systems problems. I’m not going to say too much about it at the moment, I think it’s not good to do that. I know what they are struggling with – through my experiences, I know that certain things must be in place. But it was quite good for me to see there is still a lot of enthusiasm in the coaches, and they want to make it work and make it better.
That’s the important thing. If you sit with coaches that are sort of, don’t know what they want to achieve and don’t know what they want to do ... It’s not like that at all. There is a lot of energy there and the guys really want to turn it around.
Will we see you helping with the on-field coaching?
There are a lot of other responsibilities as well. I don’t want the whole ... otherwise all my attention is just with the (Stormers) team – which is important, I think it’s very important. But like this morning, the WP Institute players are playing against the SA Under-20s in Stellenbosch, so I just want to have a look and see what is there and see how they perform.
Then I’m going to sit down with Jacques Hanekom and those guys and look at recruiting and their systems and how they do that, and what they have at the moment.
There are six or seven locks out injured. Are you trying to sign another lock?
It’s one thing to say that you are just going to get someone in, but I don’t want to bring someone in just to make up the numbers. If you bring somebody in, that person must make a difference, otherwise you are wasting money and you are wasting time. In any case, we are in the middle of the competition now, and if you bring someone in, it’s going to take some time to really get going in terms of the systems they have and all the calls.
For me, I want to give the responsibility to the players now to show what they can do. There’s a coaching responsibility and there’s a player responsibility. We are all in it, so it’s not the players on the one side and the coaches on the other side.
Which other positions are you concerned about?
I think it’s a bit too early to say. I first want to sit down with individuals and see what they experienced. I think it would be unfair to say now that I’m going to bring in other players and other coaches if I don’t give these guys the understanding that they have a responsibility first, and see that they perform and get certain things in place. If they can’t do that, then we will have to look at it and make some tough decisions.
So the same applies to the coaches as with the players, as you said recently that the coaches need to “show their mettle”?
I know what they are struggling with. It’s always tough, in my days as well, if you sit with a lot of injuries. I remember that in my first two years actually, in my first year we lost eight players at the beginning of the season, and in the second year, it was the opposite – a lot of injuries in the latter part.
There’s a lot of dynamics that go with it. It’s one thing to say there are youngsters coming through, but the culture changes in a certain way – you sit there with a lot of inexperienced players, but they must also show what they can bring to Super Rugby. It’s about giving them healthy pressure and seeing whether they can handle this kind of level.
Your appointment was also made to ease Allister Coetzee’s workload. And there’s been talk of giving him a break from Currie Cup. Is that the plan?
I won’t make a decision now, so we will go through the next couple of weeks and see where they sit. Two weeks is not enough, because the players are also on a bit of a break now. It’s quite important for them to get that break, because they have been away for four weeks and will come back under pressure. It’s important for them to get to their families and that’s also part of managing a player.
You said recently your comments about a traditional WP/ Stormers brand was misinterpreted, and you didn’t mean they will run from everywhere. But you never said it means they will run from everywhere. So isn’t a traditional style about a pack that win their set-pieces and inside backs making decisions based on what’s in front of them?
Ja, ja, you are 100 percent correct there. It is just to have a balanced approach – you want to have an integrated plan. The game has more than just attack. If you look at stats, you sometimes defend for half a game as well, so that is just as important.
I think we are very good at the moment in defence, but what I wanted to say in the press conference was that it’s important that we beef up our attack a little bit more. To see that we spend time on the right things. I think defence is maybe easier to coach than attack.
There has been such a major emphasis on defence, so shouldn’t there be an equal emphasis on attack?
Absolutely. Let me first say that Jacques (Nienaber) is one of the best defence coaches in world rugby. I think he is doing an outstanding job. But it’s just about how do we bring our defence together with the attack? And vice versa, how do we bring the attack together with the defence?
How do you make that shift?
First, where you start is to change the mindset first. You have to think that way. You want to attack, but not frivolously – giving passes away all over the place, and overhead passes and playing a type of six-touch game. It’s important that you attack efficiently and with a fair amount of skill. It’s just to get all those things back into the make-up of the players, which means you need to spend some time on it.
But again, that’s more off-season stuff. They are in the middle of the competition, so slowly but surely and progressively make the players confident in that and make time for certain things, and just have a balance in training as well on attack and defence.
What do you think about the feeling around the Stormers’ strategy being that they prefer to not have the ball?
What I would like to see is that we put pressure on the opposition with ball-in-hand – and I say ball-in-hand, (meaning) just a little more attack. But in attack, you get attacking kicks as well. The purpose of the kick is to regain possession, you don’t just kick to give the ball to the opposition.
The Stormers were booed by some sections of the crowd after the Waratahs game. What message do you have for the fans?
We’ve got great supporters and they are passionate about the game, and that’s the thing you want. We would like to put a better product on the park. That’s what I’m here for and what I’m working towards. I think the coaches also want that, not just for themselves but also for the supporters.