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Kiss and Goosen emerge as Edinburgh candidates

Les Kiss, Head Coach of London Irish looks on prior to the ECPR Challenge Cup Quarter Final match between RC Toulon and London Irish at Stade Mayol on May 08, 2022 in Toulon, France. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Tom 54 minutes ago
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That 2019 performance was literally the peak in attacking rugby under Eddie. If you thought that was underwhelming, the rest of it was garbage.


I totally get what you're saying and England don't need or have any God given right to the best coaches in the world... But I actually think the coaches we do have are quite poor and for the richest union in the world, that's not good enough. 


England are competitive for sure but with the talent pool up here and the funds available, we should be in the top 3. At the very least we should be winning six nations titles on a semi-regular basis. If Ireland can, England definitely should.


England's attack coach (Richard Wigglesworth) is Borthwick's mate from his playing days at Saracens, who he brought to Leicester with him when he became coach. Wigglesworth was a 9 who had no running or passing game, but was the best box kicker in the business. He has no credentials to be an attack coach and I've seen nothing to prove otherwise. Aside from Marcus Smith’s individual brilliance, our collective attack has looked very uninspiring.

 

England's defence coach (Joe El-Abd) is Borthwick's housemate from uni, who has never been employed as a defence coach before. He's doing the job part time while he's still the head coach of a team in the second division of French rugby who have an awful defensive record. England's defence has gone from being brutally efficient under Felix Jones to as leaky as a colander almost overnight.


If Borthwick brings in a new attack and defence coach then I'll absolutely get behind him but his current coaches seem to be the product of nepotism. He's brought in people he's comfortable with because he lacks confidence as an international head coach and they aren't good enough for international rugby.


England are competitive because they do some things really well, mostly they front up physically, make a lot of big hits, have a solid kicking game, a good lineout, good maul, Marcus Smith and some solid forwards. A lot of what we do well I would ascribe to Borthwick personally. I don't think he's a bad coach, I think he lacks imagination and is overly risk averse. He needs coaches who will bring a point of difference.


I guess my point is, yes England are competitive, but we’re not aiming for competitive and I honestly don't believe this coaching setup has what it takes to make us any better than competitive.


On the plus side it looks like we have an amazing crop of young players coming through. Some of them who won the u20 world cup played for England A against Australia A on the weekend and looked incredible... Check out the highlights on youtube.

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