Testing times for Lions embattled coach
THE knockout stages of the SuperSport Rugby Challenge have been testing in more ways than one for the Golden Lions’ head coach Bafana Nhleko.
At 34 Nhleko is the youngest head coach in the competition and, in keeping with his laaitie status, he is in the process of studying for a Business Management course at the University of Johannesburg. The catch is his exams have coincided with the business end of the Rugby Challenge, which has made for some tricky juggling.
“The morning of the Pumas quarterfinal I had an exam to write,” he said. “Last night I was sitting at res getting extra lessons from a 21-year-old student.”
When he fielded this call on Tuesday he’s just finished writing a Financial Management paper he reckoned was “a bit of a challenge. We went toe-to-toe but I don’t know who won...”
He then went straight into a video session for the Lions’ semifinal against Griquas at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane this weekend, with a field session immediately following that.
“It seemed like a good idea at the beginning of the year, but not so good now,” he lamented. “But this game will kill you if you spend all the time thinking about it. You also want personal growth outside the game and to be the best you can be.”
Looking ahead to this weekend, Nhleko said going up against an experienced and abrasive Griquas side for a place in the final would be a different test altogether for his young side, however freely they have scored in the competition (they’ve scored 75 tries in nine matches).
“If you look at what we did against the Pumas, Griquas are not the same team but there are similarities. But it will be a slightly different exam,” he said.
As his age suggests, Nhleko – a former Jeppe Boys High first team fullback – is a career coach: “When I left school I played a bit afterwards but I always felt I wasn’t going to make it as a professional player.
“So I dabbled in coaching at school and at varsity and if I happened to get a job I got one that allowed me to leave early to coach in the afternoons. At that stage I coached junior club and Lions sides until the Lions gave me a call in 2011 to join them fulltime.
“That changed my whole perspective because I realised how little I knew and how much I still had to learn and how much I had to invest in it.”
Thankfully the Lions put Nhleko through something of an educational wringer, making him shadow coaches in their ranks: “I shadowed the defence coach, the team analyst, the backs coach, the skills coach, the breakdown coach, and thankfully I only had to understand scrums and lineouts and not take them.
“It was great to be given a chance to grow. I got a good understanding of how the whole thing unfolded.”
Through that time Nhleko was exposed to the “methodical” (former Lions coach) John Mitchell, (current Lions coach) Johan Ackerman, “who challenges his players to get the best out of them”, (age group coach) Nico Serfontein, who knew what he wanted, “the incredible work ethic” of (Springbok assistant coach Johann van Graan), Timmy Goodwin (another age group coach) and others.
He also credits his coaching staff, defence coach Joey Mongalo, forwards coach Wessel Roux, backs coach Herkie Kruger, technical analyst Wynand Ellis and the team doctors and physios for challenging him to be better.
And in a country desperate for new coaches, let alone black coaches, does he feel the pressure of being one at a provincial union as big as the Lions?
“I never got the game with the baggage of being a player or a coach who was pushed because of the colour of their skin,” he explains. “But we live in South Africa and skin colour matters. We still see people as black first and then as players or coaches.
“If we give equal opportunities to everyone then we’ll be able to get the best out of everyone. I’m hoping to be a good coach that happens to be black.” — © supersport.com