Coetzee’s CV lacks Super Rugby title

SUCCESS is many things to many people and, in sport, the obvious definition is in titles won and trophies collected. Or is it?

In professional sport, the balance sheet is arguably as important as claiming championships and, therefore, a team’s winning percentage is an equally acceptable measure of success.

A team that wins games consistently is likely to attract more lucrative sponsors, draw bigger crowds and sell more season tickets. It’s something the Stormers have done successfully.

“The aim of the Stormers is not only to win trophies but to win every game,” said Rob Wagner, Western Province chief executive. “However, if we reflect back at how far this team has come under [coach] Allister Coetzee since 2010 it makes for good reading — three home semifinals, one final, two conference titles and topping the overall standings in 2012. But no one wants to win Super Rugby more than we do.”

Coetzee is under increasing pressure because his Stormers, despite their consistency, have not bagged the Super Rugby title.

Between 2010 and 2013 Coetzee’s teams have won 45 of 65 games, or 69.2%. There isn’t a coach in the tournament who has been at the helm in the same period with a better winning record.

Considering that South African teams have it tougher on the road, where four-week tours to Australasia are more arduous than the two-week visits undertaken by Australian and New Zealand franchises, it’s a quite remarkable record.

The Crusaders, seven-time champions, have not won the title since 2008.

Coach Todd Blackadder took over a championship-winning team in 2009 from the successful Robbie Deans, but has yet to deliver the title to Christchurch. Yet there are no calls for his head.

Bulls coach Frans Ludeke inherited a championship-winning team from Heyneke Meyer in 2008 and, to his credit, returned two further titles to Loftus, in 2009 and 2010. But in the three intervening years the Bulls have made one semifinal and his overall winning percentage is lower than Coetzee’s.

Coetzee inherited a side that finished tenth in 2009, with five wins from 13 games, and took the Stormers to the final in 2010, a home semifinal in 2011 and again in 2012. Last year was the anomaly, as the Stormers fell to seventh on the log despite a five-match winning streak to end the campaign as the form team in the competition.

Axing Coetzee at the end of the current campaign could happen — that threat hangs over every coach — but perhaps the answer lies in tweaking systems around him.

Coetzee has a contract until the end of 2015 and, regardless of what happens this season, he’ll have until then to deliver silverware.