Kings must sweat blood
Team’s attitude vital for Currie Cup, says Janse van Rensburg
DETERMINED EP Kings head coach Brent Janse van Rensburg says he will demand the highest possible standards on the practice field as his team sweat to get into shape both mentally and physically for the Currie Cup.
Thrust into the Kings coaching hot seat after Lions assistant coach Swys de Bruin turned down an offer to join the Kings, Janse van Rensburg has wasted no time in making his presence felt.
“Having a high performance culture, being professional and having really good standards on the practice field are important,” he said.
“That does not just happen. We have to work at it. There is a lot of work going into it.”
The Kings had a strategy workshop at the exclusive Royalston Residential Estate and Wildlife Reserve outside Port Elizabeth last week, when Janse van Rensburg outlined some of his strategies for what will be a gruelling Currie Cup campaign Some of the topics discussed were:
Where do the Kings want to go?
Why do the Kings want to go there?
How are the Kings going to go there?
What are the high performance standards that need to be set in place?
Asked what his goals for the Currie Cup were, Janse van Rensburg said: “For me personally I will start with the players wanting to play for me and this management team and what we stand for as human beings and as people.
“If we can get this right and the value system is really strong and we have a good healthy culture of what we stand for then the game plans and the strategy will come.
“The players need to have an intimate understanding of us as people and what we stand for and for the example that we set and how we manage them as people. That is important for me. We have to be good human beings first.”
Janse van Rensburg, who faces his first test when the Sharks visit Port Elizabeth for a friendly on July 11, has warned that getting the standards in place will take hard work.
“Things like high performance culture, being professional and having really good standards on the practice field just do not happen. We have to work at it. There is a lot of work going into it.
“For me the days of having a unilateral decision-making system with players are long gone.
“If you want sustainable performance there needs to be a bit of dual management. You must give an environment where your leadership stimulates players wanting to learn.
“The players need to be involved in navigating that process. For me that is very important. You can have all the game plans in place. But if that environment is not in place it is never going to endure itself.
“That is the first focus and alignment among all the partners to make sure we are very efficient,” Janse van Rensburg said.
“We are very thankful to have Johan Pretorius back here, who was our Super Rugby conditioning coach.
“He has come back from Edinburgh recently and done a fantastic job on the conditioning front in the past couple of weeks.
“There has been massive improvement there and I am very happy to report that most of the players are on their feet at the moment in the preseason,” Janse van Rensburg said.
Meanwhile, EP Kings chief executive Charl Crous has welcomed the return of former Southern Kings Super Rugby star Jacques “Vleis” Engelbrecht.
“Jacques was a familiar face in our ranks, both for the EP Kings and the Southern Kings, and we are looking forward to having him back for our Currie Cup campaign,” Crous said.
“We believe he will add a great deal to our squad during this important time for rugby in the province.”