Les Kiss
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Born | 9 December 1964 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Position | Wing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: [1] As of 9 March 2018 |
Les Kiss (born 9 December 1964) is an Australian professional
Kiss has previously been assistant head coach of Ireland and the Director of Rugby at Ulster.
He is a former professional rugby league footballer who played in the Brisbane Rugby League and New South Wales Rugby League and a former professional rugby league coach who was the head coach at the London Broncos in the Super League.
Playing career
Kiss was a Bundaberg
Les Kiss scored only 29 tries for Norths in his 100 games but despite not being the fastest wing, and with a best haul of nine tries in a season (1986), he was considered to be one of the best defensive wingers in the Sydney competition. He also kicked 38 goals from 64 attempts (59.38%) for the Bears with his best season again being his debut year (1986) when he kicked 23/38 at 60.53%.
Representative career
Les Kiss was originally from Bundaberg in
Benefiting from an injury to fellow Queenslander
Kiss's good form continued for the Bears and he was an obvious selection for the
Les Kiss then had a wait of four years before he tasted representative football again. He was selected for games 1 and 2 of the 1990 Origin series. Queensland lost both games and Kiss was one of the players dropped for Game 3 (replaced by Willie Carne). In what turned out to be a brief representative career, Les Kiss played in 4 games for Queensland (all losses) and 4 games for Australia (all wins) scoring a total of 3 Origin and 2 Test tries.
In 2008, rugby league in Australia's centenary year, Kiss was named on the wing of the Bundaberg Rugby League's team of the century.[3]
Coaching career
Kiss worked as an assistant rugby league coach for the London Broncos Super League club and then as joint head coach with former North Sydney teammate Tony Rea.
Rugby union
Kiss worked as a defence coach for the Springboks in South Africa in 2001–02,[4] and was an assistant coach with the New South Wales Waratahs from 2002 until 2008.[5]
Kiss was appointed defensive coach with the Ireland under head coach Declan Kidney in 2009, sharing in a triumphant Grand Slam victory that had eluded Ireland for 61 years in his first year in the job.[4] After Kidney's departure on 2 April 2013, Kiss became the head coach of the Ireland team as an interim appointment for their 2013 summer tour to North America.[6] Kiss resumed his role as defence coach after the tour when Joe Schmidt took over late in 2013.[7] On 30 June 2014, Kiss became the interim director of rugby at Ulster, following the departures of Mark Anscombe and David Humphreys.
In January 2018, Kiss announced his resignation as Ulster Director of Rugby.[8]
In March 2018, he and Declan Kidney were reunited when they were appointed by London Irish. Kiss became head coach with Kidney appointed technical consultant.[9] Kidney later became Director of Rugby.
On 23 July 2023, Kiss was announced as the new head coach of the Queensland Reds for the 2024 season, through to 2026, taking over the role from Brad Thorn.
References
- ^ RLP
- ^ Les Kiss at Past Brothers RLFC website
- ^ "BRL Team of the Century named". sportingpulse.com. Bundaberg Rugby League Ltd. Retrieved 8 January 2012.
- ^ a b "Clients - Les Kiss". The Fordham Company. Archived from the original on 27 April 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2008.
- ^ "Waratahs Management - NSW Rugby". NSW Rugby. Archived from the original on 20 February 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2008.
- ^ "Ireland turn their back on Declan Kidney". 2 April 2013. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
- ^ "Les Kiss confirms he will work under Joe Schmidt". independent.ie. 19 May 2013. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014. Retrieved 2 April 2014.
- ^ "Upheaval in Ulster as Les Kiss leaves position as Director of Rugby 'effective immediately'". Irish Independent. 31 January 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
- ^ "London Irish: Coaches Declan Kidney and Les Kiss join Premiership's bottom club". BBC Sport. 9 March 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2020.