RWC winner Rassie wrapping up Springbok coaching team
● SA Rugby director of rugby Rassie Erasmus is assembling a familiar looking Springbok coaching group likely to include Jacques Nienaber, Deon Davids, Mzwandile Stick and Irishman Felix Jones.
Nienaber and Davids have long been touted as instrumental in the new set-up following Erasmus’s decision to leave the Bok coaching job and revert to the position he was appointed to at the start of last year.
Having plotted the Springboks’ Rugby World Cup (RWC) victory Erasmus will step back but will still play a key role in the operations of the team next year.
Nienaber, his trusty lieutenant, has the inside lane to take over as head coach. In him, the director of rugby will have the man best placed to continue the legacy from the RWC triumph. Nienaber has emerged as a strong voice in Erasmus’s coaching group and appeared to be primed for the position.
“They will put Jacques in charge and Deon will come in, most probably as forwards coach,” a Springbok insider told the Sunday
Times. “With Jacques as head coach there will be continuity in the coaching set-up.”
When the Sunday Times spoke to SA Rugby president Mark Alexander he too extolled the virtues of continuity. “We want to go beyond the next RWC,” he said about the coaching appointments. “The problem with SA rugby is that there was never continuity.
“Steve Hansen was in the All Blacks’ system for how many years (15) before he retired?”
Davids, the former Southern Kings coach, is set to be a new face in the coaching group.
Jones, brought on board as consultant for the RWC after Swys de Bruin vacated the position as attack coach due to illness, proved a valuable member of the coaching set-up. He has an eye for detail and was tasked with picking holes in the opposition’s defence. The former Munster attack coach is particularly well equipped at deconstructing northern hemisphere teams’ attack.
The Boks found his attention to detail useful in their RWC semifinal win over Wales as well as the final against England.
Stick proved an immensely popular member of the coaching team but there appears to be no room for forwards coach Matt Proudfoot, whose contract expires.
In fact, all the contracts, bar that of Erasmus who has signed on until 2023, expired after the RWC.
While Proudfoot can take a huge amount of pride in the way the Bok pack performed at the RWC, his position appeared tenuous after Erasmus took office.
“They didn’t really want him part of the set-up but he had a four-year contract that he was determined to see out,” the insider said.
Alexander said the new Bok coaching group is likely to be unveiled before the end of the year. “Rassie first had to submit his close-out report which deals with the RWC. He did that on Thursday.
“He now has to come up with recommendations. He has to talk to people. It will be done in the next week or so.”