We can’t afford to lose Rassie, even if he isn’t keen on a hands-on coaching role

THERE needs to be some clarification on the story that did the rounds this week about Rassie Erasmus not being available for the Springbok job.

The way I understood it, Erasmus was only in the picture because the administrators were taking so long to finalise a coaching replacement for Heyneke Meyer that he was considering doing it as a stop-gap measure just for the series against Ireland. The Irish are due in South Africa in June, which is just three months from now and Erasmus’ role at Saru, which is effectively performance director, was being compromised by the delay.

Erasmus is not crazy about being a hands-on coach, partly for the reasons that others have given for their reluctance to back him as Bok mentor – he’s not crazy about the public relations aspects of the job and after being a top player himself for several years, neither does he crave the limelight. He’s happier putting his brain to work by formulating systems, structures and strategies from the background.

That brain, though, is not one that South African rugby can do without at this stage when so many of the best coaches are working overseas, so hearing that he may be set to continue his career overseas – Japan was an option a short while ago, but I’ve heard from reliable sources that Bath is now a stronger one – is not good news at all.

There has been too much of a brain drain from South African rugby recently, and too many of the would-be top local coaches, such as Nick Mallett, John Mitchell (the Kiwi is still a resident of Durban) and Jake White, are either not coaching or are coaching overseas teams.

I wouldn’t blame Erasmus if he was fed up with the procrastination that appears to be resulting from the internecine conflict blighting the local rugby decision- making process, just as I didn’t blame him when he took his leave of Western Province in early 2012.

But it would be a big loss if he and Jacques Nienaber vacated their present positions. The Boks didn’t win the World Cup and the defeats to Japan and Argentina will forever overshadow whatever else happened last year, but it isn’t a secret that Meyer preferred to distance himself from Erasmus rather than work with him. So the former Bok loose forward can’t be blamed for the senior team’s failings.

What we should be doing instead is recognising the improvements that have been made across the other levels, including Sevens and national age-group. It is still a work in progress, but good things are happening, and hopefully Erasmus will opt to continue with that work rather than for it all to go to waste.

As for the Boks, the coaching appointment process needs to be sped up. While the All Blacks have already named their captain, the Boks have yet to settle on their coach. It looks like Allister Coetzee is back in the hiring line, but he will have to get out of his contract with his Japanese club first.

In the meantime, the one saving grace for the Boks might be that although the head coach hasn’t been settled on, the reappointment of forwards coach Johan van Graan, and the retention in the unit of Meyer’s erstwhile manager, Ian Schwartz, means the players can at least be assured that for the first time in 12 years there will be some element of continuity.

Gert Smal, who worked as an assistant under both Rudolf Straeuli and then White, was the last person to carry through from one four- year World Cup cycle to another. Although White’s team won the World Cup in 2007, there was a complete clean out of the winning management group in 2008, and successor Peter de Villiers later regretted that decision.

When he took up his posi- tion, De Villiers wanted to appoint his own management team, which after all is generally the accepted worldwide practice. But looking back when we were working on his book in late 2011, he was honest enough to admit that he should have retained some of White’s men. He felt it would have helped him avoid some of the mistakes that contribute to the acute growing pains he had to put up with in his first year as national coach.

South African rugby has a long history of failing to take advantage of the intellectual capital that it has invested in, and it dates right back to the beginning of the post-isolation era.

The first Bok coach of the period, John Williams, arrived back from what was to be his first and last international tour with a report he thought would help what was then Sarfu to avoid mistakes going forward, but the organisation didn’t so much as even bother to accept it, let alone read it.

The other Bok coaches since 1992 will tell a similar story, including De Villiers. Time will tell whether a prospective new Bok coach will be happy to work with management members that have been pre- appointed by Saru. But provided he is entitled to hand-pick most of the assistant coaches himself, it shouldn’t be a major stumbling block and may be the one positive in a sea of negatives.