Sir Clive Woodward disciple Kennedy Tsimba revelling in coaching 'the chaos'

Bath’s 1997/98 season is best remembered as the year they became the first English champions of Europe. But, privately, it was also the time when the genesis of an idea that transition play could be coached was planted in the mind of the one of the club’s overseas signings, Kennedy Tsimba.

As the first black player to captain the Zimbabwe in 1998, Tsimba already had a track record in breaking new ground. But lately he’s become a pioneer in coaching transition, the grey area between attack and defence, where possession suddenly shifts from one team to another, and it’s all thanks to his brief six-month stay in the West Country.

Tsimba had come across to England as fly-half understudy to Mike Catt and Rich Butland, and while the Zimbabwean only made four appearances for the club, he made a lasting impression, scoring five tries, before returning to South Africa and making a name for himself with the Cheetahs.

As a fleet-footed and quick-witted player, the World Rugby Hall of Famer excelled when the game broke down, using his instinct to play what was in front of him and make the most of broken field opportunities. So transition is nothing new to him, it’s just framed differently to when Andy Robinson and Sir Clive Woodward had a one-on-one chat with him at Bath in the early years of professionalism.

“When I started coaching I was coaching with certain methodologies, not understanding where they originated from. But when I got into a professional coaching role with the Bulls, I decided that I had time to dig deeper,” he explains.

“I looked back at footage of how I played, and I resonated with that phase of the game.

“The only coach that exactly sat down and asked me about it was Robbo. I think we had played a reserve match, and Robbo and Clive had a chat with me and said, ‘listen, you really excel when there is chaos and unstructured play and we must see if we can create more of that to suit your skills’.

“I have worked with some world-class coaches and none of them ever broke it down to me that way.

“I thought to myself, ‘are we not missing the next evolution of the game?’

“So that was the start of my journey looking into this facet of rugby. It was quite profound and only now does it resonate with me because I have quite a few discussions with my players now.”

Tsimba’s influence can be seen at Bath, nearly three decades after he graced The Rec, in the form of one of his own disciples, scrum-half Bernard van der Linde, who moved to the club from the Bulls.

“If any players knows about transition, it’s him,” says Tsimba.

“He’s what I call one of my influencers; the try he scored against Saracens (in the PREM) was transition play in its purest form.”

Transition play has become one of the big buzzwords and catchphrases in rugby, every bit as much as kick-to-compete, truck and trailer and gain-line dominance.

In a recent interview on this website, Jake Sharp, kicking and skills coach of Northampton, arguably the best side at transition play in the PREM, explained that the rise of unstructured play was down to kicking creating really big transitions in play.

Tsimba insists it is possible to coach ‘the chaos’, and he has the job title to prove it.

The Bulls assistant coach says: “When you bring in a new concept there is obviously going to be resistance because people fear change because they don’t know how it is going to affect them. You have to look at it strategically, starting with the basics. But ultimately the moment they feel something it is easier to grapple, and within that chaos there is structure that can be coached.”

Tsimba logged every game the Springboks played at the last Rugby Woirld Cup, specifically looking at the outcomes of transition play, and how it came about, and continues to do so for matches in the URC, PREM and other major competitions.

“Transition is any time there is a change of possession – it can be voluntarily or involuntarily, you either kick it away or it is given to you by a mistake. As long as the ball stays in play, it is deemed unstructured,” he explained.

“The stats say that over half of the game is unstructured, but 95% of the time we are coaching structure. Our coaching philosophies have to change to adapt to that.

“We focus so much on the structured part, and that’s underrstandable, because it’s easier to understand that. But when chaos arises how do we get our players to feel comfortable and be able to excel?

“At first, people were saying it is uncoachable but with the way things have gone with modern technology, and people being more open minded, anything is coachable if you understand the principles behind it.

“It’s so important and it affects games in a big way. What is nice now is that when people see it in games they message me, saying ‘have you seen this?'”

So how do you coach something so fluid and, seemingly, unpredictable?

“There are a number of guiding principles that enable players to be accountable and they are then able to handle the chaos way much better,” he says.

“Reaction time is one of the most important elements, it is a great tool to be ahead of time. We look at that as a skill.

“If you look at Formula 1 drivers and tennis players in their preparation, they practice reaction times. When we have contestables, and a lot of them are going to be loose balls because a lot opt not to catch them, there has to be a reaction, so we practice body positioning, having your weight forward, so you are on the front foot.

“As part of my skills development sessions, I have introduced visual training through a virtual reality chaos and decision-making game, where you have to make decisions based on what’s presented to you. One might be if you see a hockey ball and it is red, you have to do one type of action, and you might see an American Football, which is green, which prompts you to do another action. There are various types of cognitive skills that you can work on.”

One of the understandable fears before this year’s Six Nations was that the Championship would be reduced to a kickfest, due to the change in the access laws and the way the game now favours attacking teams when the ball goes up in the air.

England had become masters of the tactic, mirroring what the Springboks had done so well in winning The Rugby Championship, as they strung together an 12-game winning streak.

But, as it turned out, by the time George Ford had put an extra layer of varnish on his boots in readiness for what lay ahead, other teams had come up with a plan to not only nullify their main attacking weapon but to also profit from the chaos that often comes from balls being slapped down from aerial contests.

France are the kings of unstructured play, in the northern hemisphere at least, but Tsimba believes they can still improve in this vital area as they go in search of their first world title in Australia in 2027.

“France have such great unstructured players; a framework of this kind could assist them by giving them a competitive edge.

“To win World Cups you need to be able to execute those transition moments consistently. We know from past World Cup finals, you may only get one chance and if don’t have that system in place, it can then backfire.

“You can watch any game and there is an average of two tries scored via transition play. But having a transitional system is not just about scoring tries, it is about territory, 22 entries,” he adds.

Tsimba is in World Rugby’s Hall of Fame, along with his brother Richard, Zimbabwe’s 1987 and 1991 World Cup star, for his contribution to the sport in Africa and the black community. But his biggest legacy could be the work he is doing now.

“My first question when I start presenting my ideas to a room of people is, ‘does defence win games?’ And they all say yes. And then I ask them the same question at the end of the presentation, and they say that defensive transitions win championships.

“Yes, you can always stop people from scoring but you still have to put points on the board yourself.

“This could be the next evolution of rugby coaching.”