Ackermann achieved many highs, but Lions remain largely untransformed
SWYS DE BRUIN takes charge of the Lions as head coach for the first time this week. And his priority in the coming weeks and months is to ensure the Lions become a transformed rugby side.
Outgoing coach Johan Ackermann – who will join up with Gloucester this week – achieved many highs during his five years in charge, but his Lions team remained largely untransformed; possibly the only blight on his time in Joburg.
Sure, Ackermann didn’t win the Super Rugby title, but his team played in backto-back finals, and the Lions recorded several firsts during his term in charge. No one will be able to say it wasn’t a successful five years for the former Springbok lock, but there is a strong argument he didn’t do much to help national coach Allister Coetzee – or even Heyneke Meyer before him – when it comes to reaching transformation targets.
The reality is Coetzee has to have 50 percent black player representation in his Bok side for the 2019 World Cup in Japan, and to achieve this he’ll need every Super Rugby franchise in the country to give black players a fair opportunity to get into the Bok team.
Ackermann only picked backs Courtnall Skosan, Lionel Mapoe and Elton Jantjies during the Super Rugby campaign – all three established players. Sylvian Mahuza, who warmed the bench for much of the season, made it four black players out of 23. That is simply not good enough.
Madosh Tambwe filled in on the wing until Ruan Combrinck returned from injury and showed promise, but never got much of a look-in after the Bok winger nailed down his spot again, while Anthony Volmink, Fabian Booysen, Sti Sithole and lock recruit from the Bulls, Marvin Orie, hardly got an opportunity. Howard Mnisi spent the entire campaign on the sidelines because of injury, but he did play regularly in 2016.
Compared to the Stormers, Bulls, Sharks, Kings and Cheetahs, the Lions have simply not done their bit to help the Bok boss and do what is morally right.
It’s now up to De Bruin to “fix” what Ackermann neglected.
“I trust in Swys and believe he can take this team further, to the next step,” said Ackermann after Saturday’s Super Rugby final. “He’s got a quality group of players supporting him.”
That is, indeed, the case even if the likes of Faf de Klerk and Akker van der Merwe have left the Lions, and there could be a few more men heading elsewhere. Ackermann’s son, Ruan, is rumoured to team up with his father in Gloucester.
Also, the Lions will now soldier on in the Currie Cup without several first-choice players who’ll either be involved with the Springboks during the Rugby Championship – there are seven of them – or head to Japan to play there until early next year.
But the Currie Cup affords De Bruin a chance to try new players and test different combinations.
The good news for him, at this stage, is that Combrinck, Harold Vorster, Rohan Janse van Rensburg and Ruan Dreyer didn’t crack a Bok call-up for the start of the Championship.
Transforming the Lions team should be a priority for De Bruin. And just looking at the men who turned out for the Lions in their Currie Cup game against the Bulls last weekend there are enough quality players to pick, among them Tambwe, Volminck, Booysen, Orie, Sithole, Andrew Beerwinkel, Ashlon Davids, Aphiwe Dyantyi, Bobby de Wee and Hacjivah Dayimani.
South African rugby supporters will be watching the Lions very closely in the coming weeks and months.
They now have to do more when it comes to transformation.