Allister has leaner management, but lots of help

IT’S a sign of the austere times we live in that even the Springboks felt the effects of cost-cutting when their composition was revealed this week.

New head coach Allister Coetzee will have a leaner full time management staff than his predecessor Heyneke Meyer.

Coetzee’s management consists of 10 people. At its most staffed, Meyer had 20 management members touring with the Boks. But it doesn’t mean the new coach won’t have access to some of the best brains through outside consultants, or SA Rugby’s internal Mobi-Unit. It just means they won’t always be with the team.

The game has moved on and specialists are required in every area, especially if the Boks want to close the ever-widening gap on the All Blacks. But most of that work has to be done at provincial level anyway.

Time in prescribed test windows is hugely limited so having an army of helpers on tour can be superfluous.

In 2013, under Rassie Erasmus’s rugby department, SA Rugby launched what it termed the Mobi-Unit where the skills of coaches it employed could be used to improve rugby standards across SA.

The concept also stemmed from the need to keep specialist coaches in Meyer’s set-up such as Pieter de Villiers (scrums), Louis Koen (kicking) and Chean Roux (technical analysis) gainfully employed for 12 months.

In theory those men are no longer part of the Bok management, but in reality they will still be assisting Coetzee.

“We have a massive amount of rugby expertise through our national teams and in our offices, but it has been under-utilised in the past,” Erasmus said when the project was launched.

“What we’re now offering is a back up to coaches in the form of consultants in specialist areas who can share their considerable experience as well as pass on the latest thinking.”

Coetzee said they’ve been hard at work preparing for a three-test series against Ireland in June.

“I know that Ireland will present a tough challenge, as Six Nations champions in 2014 and 2015,” Coetzee said.

“But I am positive when I see all the preparation that’s already been done by the Mobi-Unit, as well as the fact that the South African [Super Rugby] teams are playing some good rugby.”

Most of that preparation has been through analysis of the opposition and of compiling data on potential Bok players through the Footprint system, which was developed by Erasmus and his team.

Coetzee, who was only employed on April 1, has been meeting with Erasmus and members of the MobiUnit regularly for the past six weeks. Any suggestion that preparation has fallen behind because Coetzee was officially named so late are off the mark.

Behind the scenes he has come into a set-up in possession of huge data and expertise developed and accrued via the Mobi-Unit — something that didn’t exist four years ago.

We’ve massive amount of rugby expertise through our national teams and in offices