New Ideas Praised by O’Connell

There’s a familiar feeling to training for Paul O’Connell, with two former Munster coaches in Kidney and Gaffney you might think training would be same old, same old.

But new voices have been praised by O’Connell who’s liking what he hears from forwards coach Gert Smal who assisted Jake White in steering South Africa to World Cup glory last year.

“He seems to be a very good coach, a very enthusiastic guy and very knowledgeable,”

“He’s been great. I suppose the more new ideas guys get the better. He’s different to Laurie (Fisher) who we have now with Munster and Axel (Anthony Foley), and Niallo (Niall O’Donovan) we’ve have before (with Ireland).

“It’s good to get a cross section of ideas and a different way of doing things. Often with coaches that come in…it confirms that what you’ve been doing all along has been right, it kinda backs that up.

“It’s been good, it’s a different way of doing things and it’s been really good for us.”

Tags: OConnell, smal
October 31st, 2008 | Posted in Players | No Comments »