Gerry Thornleytalks to Ireland's forwards coach, who is the first to admit that rugby has been very, very good to him and his family
GERT SMAL could have been bitter with his lot. In another era he’d have won much more than six caps with the Springboks but the best of his career in the 1980s coincided with the Springboks’ isolation. But while he’s entitled to be envious of those that followed, he also sees the bigger picture.
Overall Smal made the most of what the circumstances permitted him, and he fully realises that rugby has ultimately been very, very good to him, affording him the opportunity to live chunks of his life in Italy and now Ireland, and sustaining a rewarding professional career in the game long after he finished playing.
With his wife, Patti, and children, Dean and Tammy even more settled now than a year ago, he says there’s not been one minute when he’s regretted coming to Ireland. He surveys what he sees and deduces Ireland are definitely in a better place now, but they’ll have to play much better to retain their crown.
“Because we are the champions. Everybody is going to come at us twice as hard as last year. So we’ll see how we can pick up the quality of our game – in all facets of play. It’s actually a nice challenge and there’s a positive feel about the challenge. You’ve proved that you can win it. The challenge now is to go and win it again, not to retain it, but to go and win it again. Because that’s what it’s going to cost. And maybe play better and harder than we played last year.”
Contentment with his lot emanates largely from winning. That’s what makes him tick, and when things don’t go right it annoys him intensely. He’s been that way as long as he can remember. He always wanted to be the best and if there was somebody in his position ahead of him in the pecking order, he worked harder – in the gym, on the training ground, or in matches – to overtake that player. “You just say to yourself ‘I’m going to take you out’. And the quicker I can do it the better.”
Although his dad played a little rugby, his parents (Hendrik, a train driver, and Cecilia) weren’t pushy about sport with either young Gert or his three sisters and one brother. He was initially reared in a town called Warrington, about 50 miles outside Kimberley, before the family moved to Kroonstad, between Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, in a large maize and cattle farming community.
From first year in high school to his penultimate year, Smal’s rugby prowess stalled because, surprisingly, he was true to his surname physically. Initially a fullback, in his penultimate year “I got a little bit of length and the coach asked me to just jump against a lock. In university I also played lock under-20 and then the loose forward got injured. They moved me to loose forward at university and I had a blinder in the first two games. In the second game I scored three tries. I got the breaks at the right time as well.”
He twice obtained sports bursaries at university which helped him avoid military service. He was due to study for an engineering degree in Northern Transvaal when he was invited to Stellenbosch by Dr Danie Craven, who advised him that if he wanted to play for the Springboks, he’d be better off taking the latter route to Cape Town and Western Province. Smal took the advice.
At Western Province, there were a clutch of backrow forwards ahead of him in the Springbok pecking order, who’d all played for South Africa in the early 1980s – Theuns Stofberg, Kulu Ferreira and Nick Mallett and Rob Louw. Smal was 19 when he watched television pictures of the Springboks’ Flower Bomb tour of New Zealand, after which South Africa became the pariahs of the world game because of apartheid.
In 1986, when Smal was 25 and near the peak of his playing powers, Lous Luyt bankrolled the unofficial New Zealand Cavaliers tour to South Africa. Smal played in those four Tests and again, three years later, when permission was granted for a World Invitation two-Test series. By the time South Africa was readmitted to the IRB family, he was in his 30s and his career was winding down.
“The isolation was for the right reason so I suppose I also have to pay for that in a certain way, but I don’t regret it. I more envy the guys after me who played international rugby because they had an opportunity to become legends. I never had the opportunity, so I envy those guys but it was for the right reasons because our country is a better country now. It’s a lovely country and I will always be a passionate South African.”
After the New Zealand Cavaliers, an agent offered him the chance to play Australian rugby league or Australian football – Smal can’t remember which – but that would have meant burning his bridges with rugby union. Instead came the chance to try Rovigo. The standard may have been lower but the experience was life-enhancing, and he still counts many Italians from his time there as great friends. It helped, though, that Rovigo won the Italian championship.
“The language is different, the culture is different, the traffic is different. The weather is different, it’s just a completely different environment and in fact my wife actually says that my personality changes when I go to Italy because it’s such an expressive language.”
As the legendary Naas Botha was also at Rovigo, the club drew anti-apartheid demonstrations. “There was an exhibition in the town hall about the riots in South Africa. In South Africa you only got a certain amount of information so I said to him (Botha) ‘Let’s go there and see what’s going on’. And when I saw it then I realised someone was pulling the wool over our eyes. Then I had a completely different outlook on South Africa, and that’s why I say I don’t carry any grudges. I just envy the guys that played in the years when there wasn’t apartheid. I just played at the wrong time.”
When Smal retired from playing, he studied construction and building – specialising in construction management – with a view to starting his own construction company. He had no designs on coaching but at the Cape Technical Institute he was asked to coach the college’s team. “We had quite a nice team. We ended up third in the league with a very young team and then the next year I got an offer from a bigger club (Northern Tech Parow) and we won the league twice.”
In 1995 there was a temporary vacancy as the Western Province forwards’ coach, and then Hannes Viljoen asked Smal to stay on. By then, Smal had been faced with a choice between staying in the construction industry or coaching, and had opted for the latter. “It was twice as much money and it was my passion at that stage – I was 33 already with one kid – so it was an easy decision for me.”
In his second year at High School, the players had to make a scrapbook of a player they admired. Smal chose Stofberg and in his first year of varsity rugby he played against Stofberg. “It was a huge mental shift for me as well.
“So that’s where it starts, the heroes that you have, the way that they play, the picture you have of them, the coaches that coach you, and it’s your own playing experience. It’s the courses that you do along the way also with the coaching and your own professional experience. That only comes through the years, so it’s a combination of factors that eventually makes you a coach.
“It can be a tough job as well. It can be a lonely job. Sometimes you go through a period where you don’t win games and especially when you’re the head coach, nobody wants to talk to you; it’s just you, your wife and your family.”
Smal believes he played with some outstanding players, and few better than Carel du Plessis, so when the latter took over from Andre Markgraaf and asked him aboard the Boks’ coaching ticket for the 1997 visit of the Lions, he duly joined.
“It was sort of a suicidal job,” admits Smal. “The Lions had already been on tour in South Africa for six weeks whereas we only had two weeks’ preparation. We were in for a hiding, although in that Test series we scored nine tries to three. We wanted to change the face of South African rugby and only when we put 60 points on Australia (South Africa winning 61-22 in Pretoria) they got rid of us, and then Nick Mallett took over from there.”
Smal was offered the head coaching job with the Border Bulldogs in East London in the Eastern Cape. “Also again, a different culture. A lot of black people and I had great experiences with them. Still when I go back there I always have a very good relationship with them. That year we actually beat Wales – okay Wales weren’t a very good team – and we beat Northern Transvaal, we beat Free State and we beat Western Province.”
On the strength of those achievements, Smal became the Western Province head coach, winning back-to-back Currie Cups, and from there he progressed to the Stormers, reaching the Super 14 semi-finals in his third year there, before applying for the position as Springboks’ head coach. “Applying for jobs in that environment you have to know the right people as well,” he says with due consideration, “and I’m not going to be friendly with people just to have a job.”
In any event Rudolf Straeuli was appointed and Smal was forwards’ coach for the Springboks’ disastrous 2003 World Cup campaign in Australia. Smal admits he considered returning to the construction business but Jake White prevailed upon him to remain aboard, and he thought he could provide some continuity and help White with the internal politics.
“But still, in the first few years, even the last couple of years, it was quite turbulent. We wanted to coach until the Lions series, but it became untenable for him and we all decided we’d finish at the World Cup. I always wanted to come and coach overseas, and the time was right. My kids were at the right age as well.”
He did so with a World Cup winners’ medal on his coaching CV. Throughout his tenure as the Springboks’ forwards’ coach they consistently had the best lineout in the world, culminating in a typically domineering effort up front throughout the 2007 tournament in France which ended with victory over England. Admittedly, in Bakkies Botha and Victor Matfield especially, he had some pretty handy locks to work with.
He put forward a proposal to fill the ensuing six months in the Eastern Cape, while his agents shopped around. SARFU didn’t bite, and when rumours went around that Declan Kidney would take over from the departed Eddie O’Sullivan, Smal’s agent contacted Munster.
In the meantime, White was also in Ireland, and when someone in the IRFU informed him they were looking for a forwards’ coach, he said they should look no further than Smal. So he ended up having two interviews in the Berkeley Court Hotel on the same day in May 2008.
He loves the healthy working environment, where the coaches challenge each other, and he’s pretty sure they will be friends for life. “I know we haven’t been through the tough times yet but I think we’ve got a fair amount of experience and I think we know how to put things together. We have all been through tough times and we’ll all be able to handle that very maturely.”
Contracted to the next World Cup, with his children having another year and two years respectively before finishing secondary level, ideally he’d like to stay on beyond 2011. Lots done but much more to do between now and then though.
To keep on winning would be nice. “And enjoy the experience and develop players and be an asset to the system we are operating in and see if I can make a difference. I want people to be proud of me, and just add value, and I want to make people proud.”
That’s what made the World Cup with South Africa and the Grand Slam with Ireland so good. “The World Cup is the ultimate but the Six Nations was just as good. As with the World Cup, you can feel how the whole spirit of the country just lifts, and that’s a fantastic feeling. Money can’t buy that.”
