By apb
July 28 2006

Earlier this month, Leeds Tykes announced yet another major coup in signing highly rated Super 12 prop, Kees Lensing. Kees has shown enormous class this season while playing for the Pretoria based Blue Bulls, and several Northern hemisphere clubs were involved in the race to sign him.

I was lucky enough to speak to the big man on Tuesday this week. While he has signed for Leeds, he will be seeing out the Bulls season in the Currie Cup - South Africa's premier domestic competition. So first, I asked him how things have been going in preparation for the second half of the long Southern Hemisphere season....

Kees in training...

Kees: Training's been going well, but I picked up a calf injury in the last Super 12 game for the Blue Bulls and so I'm likely to be on the bench on Friday. I'll see the doctor this week and they'll make a decision on Thursday. Even if I don't play on Friday though, I'll definitely be fit for next week. Its a long season in South Africa, with the Super 12 starting in late January/Early february, and the Currie cup starts as soon as that finishes, and the final is in November, so its a long season, and you need to be sure you're going to be fully fit and not risk making any injury worse.

APB: Good to hear you're looking after yourself for us anyway! You've gone on record as saying you wanted to play in the Premiership, to test yourself against the best props in the world. What drew you to Leeds, though, as opposed to somewhere more fashionable like London?

Kees: I certainly wanted to compare myself with the best, and I played in the Currie Cup for three seasons with the Bulls, and then made the Super 12 side this year, so I've gone up against some of the best props in Australia and New Zealand as well as South Africans. Now I have the opportunity to go up against Northern Hemisphere opposition. In terms of coming to Leeds specifically; I had offers from France and from Saracens, but when I met Phil Davies and was shown around the facilities, I thought the training facilities, the gym, the medical team, the stadium, were all very similar to the setup at the Bulls - the Stadium is a bit smaller, but other than that its very similar, so I felt at home. Also the town of Leeds, being smaller is not so busy, much more relaxed than London. I'm a farm boy, and I know that travelling in a big place like London would drive me mad! I wouldn't cope very well with having to ride the subway or on a bus or whatever for very long.

APB: Have you seen the Tykes in action?

Kees: We don't get to see a lot of Northern Hemisphere games here. We see quite a bit of NZ rugby and of course SA, but you really only get to see the later stages of the Heineken Cup, and the really big games from the NH.

APB: SO you won't have seen much of the rest of the Premiership either then. There's clearly a difference in style and emphasis between Premiership and S12, S12 generally being looser and more free-flowing. How much do you think this difference will affect your game?

Kees: I like the game to be a bit tighter to be honest, so the Premiership should be good for me! Sometimes in S12 the ball goes from one side of the pitch to the other, and as a forward all you end up doing is clear out, clear out, clear out. Playing a tighter game allows more options for the pick-and-drive etc, which suits me better. I love the contact...

APB: There are plenty of SA nationals in the new-look Leeds Tykes for 2005/6; Andre Snyman, Rayno Gerber, Roland de Marginy etc. Have you had a chance to chat with any of them?

Kees: I got Andre and Rayno's number to call, but to be honest, it was a decision I had to make for myself. Its a very personal thing, and whether Andre hates the cold and the wet...

APB: ... I'm sitting here in 24 degree heat by the way!...

Kees: ...or Rayno doesn't like the shops or whatever doesn't necessarily mean the same thing for me. So I had to make the decision as an individual. And like I said, the setup at Leeds makes me feel right at home.

Kees Lensing in Super 12 action

APB: How much of the city of Leeds and the surrounding county of Yorkshire were you able to see on your visit here?

Kees: Not a lot to be honest. I spent some time in the suburbs where most of the players live, and obviously the training ground and the rugby setup, but then we went straight back by train to London to catch the plane, so we saw some countryside through the window....

APB: Mike Shelley - Leeds legend - has said that when he retires, he'll "never pick up a rugby ball again". Can you see yourself thinking along the same lines, or are you, like me, a rugby nut?

Kees: Hopefully I'm a long way off retiring!! It would depend a bit on the opportunities that arise, but I can't see myself going in to coaching at a senior level. I'd like to be able to take on a team of juniors, maybe age 5 and 6, the age they're really receptive to learning, and bring them on through the ranks. Maybe the kind of thing where you take your son down and coach up through the age grades with him. We're talking a long way off now of course! I expect to have at least another five years or so - maybe more - before I even think about retiring.

APB: You've been involved in a winning team at the Bulls recently, but Leeds is a different proposition. We have finished in the top half of the Premiership table only once in our history, and we've been close to relegation for more times that I care to remember. How do you think you will cope with that?

Kees: Its a challenge like everything else. I've been playing in a successful team recently that's true, but I've played for smaller unions before I came to the Bulls, teams that struggled at the bottom of the log. My motto and life experience is always to work hard and to fight your way up to the top. Never lose focus and keep working toward your goals.

APB: Leeds is growing support, but we are still comfortably the least well supported team in the Premiership. Again, how will you cope, coming from such a team as the Bulls?

Kees:I've played in empty stadiums before now, so it'll be an improvement on that! To be honest, you're rarely aware of the crowd during the game, because you have to stay focussed on the job in hand.

APB: You are a seasoned international for Namibia, and represented them at the World Cup. What was that experience like?

The Big Fella Runs On...

Kees: That was a very interesting experience, because rugby in Namibia is so much smaller compared to anywhere else. It only has a population of 1.4M people, and of those, only about 400K are from a rugby culture, so there's a very small pool of players to chose from. The way the union is setup, its very like an amateur side; most of the players in that team had to fit in training and gym work around their work commitments. There were no more than 5 professional players in that team, which is why we got hammered by Australia. Those guys were at the end of their careers as well, there were no young guys coming through, so I was glad to be able to help put something back in to help Namibian rugby. The world cup experience was good as far as the organisation was concerned, but we couldn't perform at our best since the rest of the Namibian team wasn't up to the standard we normally play in SA.

I am a proud Namibian though, and I was very pleased to be able to do something to help the game there. Whenever I go back I always try to keep the guys positive tell them to grab their opportunities whenever they get them.

APB: So no regrets?

Absolutely not. I was playing in South Africa and at that time it was looking like the rugby wouldn't be my career. My Dad encouraged me to finish my degree, but the opportunity with Namibia came up, and that would make me eligible to play overseas. The first game I played for them was against South Africa A and I played against Cobus Visagie. That was the point when everything took off for me; the Blue Bulls were interested, and I think that was the last time Cobus played for SA! If I hadn't played for Namibia, perhaps I would have had those opportunities anyway, but I don't regret it at all.

APB: Thanks very much for talking to me, and I'm sure I speak for all Tykes fans when I say we're looking forward to seeing you at Headingley! All the best for the Currie Cup!

Before I let you go, I have a few quickfire questions for the player profile. Should be easy to answer! Here goes....

If you could relive any moment in your life, what would it be and why?*	My varsity days. I'd work harder and make sure I got my degree!
If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?*	More speed!
If you could go back in time and give advice to a 13 year old Kees Lensing what would it be?*	Never stop believing in yourself; whatever life throws at you, you must pick yourself up and believe.
Favourite film	Braveheart, Gladiator
Favourite music	I like U2, and traditional SA music
Favourite book	Any sports or car magazine
Favourite food	Barbeque Steak
Favourite drink	In Namibia we used to drink a lot of Jagermeister, but I'm off alcohol now, so at the moment its Pineapple Juice.
Nickname	My nickname is Kees! My real given name is Gideon, but I've been Kees for the last ten years...

All pictures courtesy of Yolandie Westpfahl
*Apologies to editors of "The Craic" for stealing these questions!

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