Coetzee: Things can only get better

JOHANNESBUG: Under-fire Springbok coach Allister Coetzee is of the opinion that every national coach experiences a bad season somewhere during his tenure and for him, he’d rather have it in year one than in his third year.

Coetzee arrived back in South Africa with his defeated team yesterday morning, adamant he will be in charge to see the Boks turn things around in the coming years.

“Every coach goes through a tough year; I’d rather take it at the beginning of my tenure,” said Coetzee yesterday after overseeing the Boks’ worst end-of-year tour since 2002.

“Things can only get better from here. I’d rather experience this now than in my third year. Hopefully in future we’ll see that this was the best for the long-term of South African rugby.”

Coetzee will now get ready for a review process with his employers, Saru, and he plans to map a way forward.

“To be honest the only English word one can use to sum up the 2016 season is disastrous. But sometimes we have to go as low as we can to go up again. What we have now is a massive opportunity in South African rugby to not only plaster over the cracks, but to clean up,” said Coetzee.

Coetzee said he was hopeful of staying in the job and made it clear “finger-pointing” wouldn’t help now.

“I will be the first to put up my hand and say I take responsibility... the players have done so as well. But finger-pointing isn’t going to help now. What is needed is a proper review where we can address key areas of the game, we must hear what comes out from players, we must see where my vision fits with SA rugby’s vision, fits with the franchises,” he said.

Coetzee though admitted he’d got certain things wrong in his first season and is confident the 2017 season will be much-improved.

“I’m disappointed in a lot of things over the season. I’m disappointed in the skill levels of the players, but they owned up to their mistakes, I’m disappointed in myself and my management team, but I have a good idea what we need to put in place, how we must react to this situation,” the 53-year-old said.

It seems Coetzee and SA Rugby are ready to put in place a policy banning overseas-based players from being considered for the Boks in future, with the coach hinting at going in with a youthful SA-based team in 2017.

“The match against Wales showed there was some belief in how the players wanted to play. All we need is for those young players to gain experience, then they can develop into good Boks,” Coetzee said.

“One of the major challenges during the year was having to pick between overseas-based players and youngster players. Getting the balance right was a challenge, but I think I found the answer in the Wales game... I saw what I wanted to see.

“I know going forward there will be a policy in place for the national coach to guide him (on overseas-based players).”