Deon Davids to be announced as New Bok Coach

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Lloyd Burnard

Cape Town - Deon Davids is a front-runner to be named as the next Springbok coach, replacing the under fire Allister Coetzee at the end of the year. 

Sport24 understands that Davids, the current coach of the Southern Kings, is rated highly by new Springbok Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus and is very much on the radar to help resuscitate the Boks.

Speculation is that Coetzee, after a second uninspiring year at the helm of the national side, is out of time and that he will be axed after SA Rugby's December 13 General Council Meeting. 

Davids would be given the title of head coach, but would effectively be serving as Erasmus' No 2. 

An assistant coach to Eric Sauls when the Junior Boks finished third at the 2009 Junior World Championship, Davids also coached the Emerging Springboks the year before that. 

Since then, he has had stints with the Golden Lions and the SWD Eagles, and in 2016 he was appointed as coach of the Kings as they made their return to Super Rugby. 

Erasmus, who was heading up the SA Rugby Mobi Unit at the time, is believed to have had a say in Davids' appointment at the Kings, which came at a time when SA Rugby took the reins at the cash-strapped union.  

In two Super Rugby seasons at the Kings, Davids guided the Port Elizabeth-based side to eight wins from 30 matches, but he did spark dramatic improvement in the 2017 season in which six of those wins came. 

The franchise was then cut from the competition in line with SANZAAR's tournament restructuring. 

Since joining the PRO14, the Kings have lost nine matches in a row, although Davids has had to start from scratch with a brand new team that was thrown together at the last minute. 

Is Davids considered to be a coach of colour? He had one decent season in SuperRugby at the Kings, but has been dismal in Pro14- albeit he lost most of his team prior to the tournament. Is he better than Coetzee, probably..

Davids has done well for the Kings. BUT at this stage I want an Eddie Jones type - a proven world class coach.

Oh my word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .... and the Kings annihilate their opposition under his guidance? SARU, WP and The Bulls are in financial trouble and they do this to regain the support (attendance at matches) of the rugby public? ha ha ha! Why is it that the Boks first got a backline assistant coach (remember the Stick guy?) which contributed zip and now this?

The first Rassie shoe to fall? This feels so Rassie....be involved but don’t be responsible. Hopefully saner heads prevail and we find the most competent coach available anywhere. Someone who runs the show and tells Rassie to have another cappuccino in the High Performance....hahahaha...Centre.

The safe bet is choosing a New Zealand coach like Dave Rennie, John Mitchell, Robbie Deans etc.

In my mind there are only 2 coaches for us in the Short term. Jake White and Hanneke Meyer. Both these coaches know the current crop of players and will select the best team. Although Meyer lost to Japan and Argentina, I still think that the most successful coaches are those who failed and picked themselves up. Graham Henry team got knocked out in the quarters, but NZ kept him on and the following year they won. Clive Woodward team got knocked out the Quarter by Jannie De Beer boot, but then went on to win it in 2003. SA is the only nation that brought in a relatively inexperience coach and won it. They did it twice !!! Steve Hansen was the Assistant at the previous world cup. I think Australia got it with Bob Dwyer but that was back in the amateur days. But please don't bring another quota in. I would almost go for dream team of White, Meyer and Ackerman. Put the dream team together and see if these 3 guys can work together for the greater good of SA

The first move is in the right direction...AC total failure but second move of David's appointment is clutching at straws, a gamble, a sideways move and an inadequate temporary fix. Unless Rassie has a insight into his potential...his record is somewhat dull with the occassional spark...in all fairness he put some spark but into the depleted and damaged Kings...maybe there is something there...but I do not see it...our revival needs a complete overhaul and "Bandaid" fixes disallusion one. The real good news is that AC will be going.

A world class coach on the level of Hansen or Jones or Schmidt? I don’t think so. The Boks need to gain ground & this appointment won’t do it.

Well, I think Davids is a great coach. He did exceptional with the resources at his disposal at the Kings. He would be a contender for the Bok job if he can get a couple of good seasons under the belt. Giving him the gig now might be too much too soon and it might kill his career. I dearly hope he does not become anithe Quota victem.

The uselessness of Davids was again underlined with the Southern Kings loss in the PRO14 competition as they went down to Edinburgh at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth on Friday evening. Edinburgh won 48-21, after leading 22-16 at half-time.

Not too fair Blik, no coach in the world would be able to coach the rabble that remains if the Kings to any kind of success.

I am not sure about Davids - but I think that he would rely on Erasmus, Venter and Smith top help him out.

Sure no coach could get anything worthwhile out of the present Kings. That's not the point though. The question is if David's has ever gotten enough out of any team to justify selection as national coach. He might be brilliant, but let us see some of that at Sr level before punting on him. Or let's be true SAcans and ruin another coach while spoiling a few more years of Bok rugby.

Deon Davids probably has potential to be trained into a better coach- in the same way, Ackerman was. However, at this stage, he has not done enough to give anything better than Super/Pro rugby. Perhaps an assistant coach role to be mentored. We need coaches to coach our coaches more than anything.

Agreed that Davids should not be the Bok coach. He has the potential to become a test coach, but he's not nearly there yet.

Mallet got the Bok gig after a season or two of coaching Boland.

@Draad, I think Mallett was an assistant coach to Carel Duplessis his predecessor. Additionally, didn't Boland win the Currie Cup when Mallett took the job, at the time the Currie Cup was allot more competitive than these days. Davids appears to be a shoe in. The Kings were the most transformed team, with more African blacks (not just coloured, white, blue, green etc). They also had a good season in SuperRugby, beating many of the SA teams, and coaching the Eastern Cape is the hotbed of African talent.

It also seems that Pdivvy and Stick are going to be in next years management team. Rassie and his band of Merrymen. The same Mzwandile Stick that was dumped last year for the pathetic backline performance. According to a report published by Argus, Pieter De Villiers could be making a return to the Bok management team under Erasmus from next year. De Villiers has not had a major job in rugby since he coached the Springboks at the 2011 World Cup. (He was also fired as a School teacher coaching role.) Another name mentioned in the report as a possible member of the new-look coaching panel is that of Mzwandile Stick, who started the Coetzee era as Bok backline coach but was binned last year.