Time to blow whistle on rugby politics

ALLISTER Coetzee quit as Springbok coach yesterday. It surprised no one after a disastrous time in charge that saw the two-time world champions suffer losses to countries that would once have stood no chance against the South Africans.

At one stage it looked like he wasn’t going to step down, but instead be subsumed into a new coaching structure where former colleague and boss at Western Province, Rassie Erasmus, would become the real power behind the throne at Saru.

It is to Coetzee’s credit that he refused to stay on under these conditions.

He might have raised the ire of Bok fans during his tenure, but it must be remembered he never sought what was once one of the plum jobs in world rugby, but was assiduously wooed – all the way to Japan – by the suits who run Saru. He arrived late into his first season, working with a coaching and administrative team he had no role in selecting. It was different the next year, where he seemed to be able to select his own people.

He was bedevilled, too, by injuries and the politics of South African sport. He had to choose black players but couldn’t pick too many. There was a ban on picking any of the glut of young gifted South African players plying their trade in Europe.

But in the end, he wasn’t a particularly good coach – and nor for that matter is Erasmus, if we are to use the standard yardstick of silverware in the club house cupboard.

Saru’s administration doesn’t make the work of the Springbok coach easy; it now must rank among the worst jobs in professional sport anywhere in the world, which explains the incredibly high turnover of coaches. The problem though is that the administrators and their parochial narrow-minded interests remain untouched.

The only way to stop the rot – and the expensive conveyor belt of coaches – is to make the suits accountable. Maybe then South Africa will regain the rugby heights the undoubted natural talent of its wealth of players suggests it should.