Heyneke’s finito/kaput in any language

EIGHT days ago, after Stade Francais had been beaten for the seventh time in nine matches, the club’s German owner, Hans-Peter Wild, gave head coach Heyneke Meyer the dreaded vote of confidence. “We have an excellent coach,’’ Wild said. “We don’t need to discuss the quality of our coach. There are clubs that change their coach every two years. It’s easy. I am one who loves long-term success with the same team. “I have not planned to hire another coach. I haven’t talked to Gonzalo Quesada (Meyer’s predecessor). I haven’t talked to Vern Cotter (ex-Scotland). I haven’t talked to anybody.’’ Meyer has been Stade’s ex-head coach since last Wednesday, his departure suggesting that the owner’s ‘love’ of ‘long-term success with the same team’ had lasted no longer than four days. Losing the Paris derby to Racing has left Wild’s club deep in the relegation mire. Another departing South African, ex-Test stand-off Morne Steyn, highlighted a ‘lack of squad unity’ before heading home to finish his career with the Pretoria-based Bulls. That sounded like a by-product of communication issues over the players’ understanding Meyer, in French, Afrikaans or English. Wild, a 78-year-old dollar billionaire who bought Stade two years ago, had defended the head coach’s ‘lack of fluency in French’ while conceding that he had linguistic issues. “His South African accent is tough to understand but he is a very excellent coach,’’ Wild said. “I run companies with 15-20 nationalities. What do we do? We speak English. “Some people can learn languages and some will never learn a language. Heyneke will never learn French. He’s not a great communicator, not even in English, I need a translator to talk to him sometimes.’’ Not any more.