Ex Supersport
he Vodacom Bulls Board of Directors won’t only meet on Friday to decide the future of coach Frans Ludeke, they may actually even promote him.
This is one of the options on the table when the board meets at Loftus Versfeld on Friday to review the current Vodacom Super Rugby season and the overseas tour that the Bulls have just been on.
The idea was presented by Ludeke himself before the tour – when the Bulls were sitting second on the overall log and at the top of the South African conference – and will be debated by the board as they look to plot the way forward after another failed Super Rugby season.
With there being growing unhappiness about the way the Bulls played – especially on the tour – as well as the way they managed players during the season and the fact that some players are selected despite poor performances, Ludeke faces one of the toughest weeks of his career leading up to the game.
On the one hand he has to ready a side for their game against the Toyota Cheetahs – a game they will still go in as heavy favourites at home – while knowing his job is firmly on the line.
The proposal was put to the board to promote Ludeke into the vacant Director of Rugby role, allowing him time and energy to focus on recruitment and the overall strategy of rugby at the union, while handing over the coaching reigns to one or two other coaches to see the day to day responsibilities take shape.
The Director of Rugby role was vacated three years ago when Heyneke Meyer became Springbok rugby coach and has remained unfilled since then.
The proposal put to the board was to improve the way the team was run and was hinted to by Ludeke when he spoke about his position a week ago via teleconference from Australia.
Under the proposal, Springbok lock Victor Matfield will revert to a coaching role after the World Cup and will possibly be joined by Fourie du Preez after he completes his contract with Japanese club Suntory Sungoliath at the beginning of 2016. Ludeke has a contract until the end of 2016 but it would be altered, and probably lengthened should the proposal be accepted.
It is also understood that one other coach – said to be former forwards coach and current Springbok assistant coach Johan van Graan – has been approached to possibly take up the role of head coach, with Matfield assisting him for next year’s Super Rugby series.
Matfield is already in charge of planning the Bulls attack and promised before the tour the team would need to go out with an “attacking mindset” on the tour if they were to make the playoffs. Four weeks later, the side has slipped back into their one-dimensional game plan and lost all four games, falling from second to ninth on the log and now without any hope of making the playoffs.
The proposal is said to be one of the reasons why assistant coach Pieter Rossouw decided not to renew his contract, especially as the Bulls could give him no certainty about his role in any changes before they left on tour.
One of the reasons is that the Bulls have also been trying to woo Heyneke Meyer back to Loftus, especially as the South African Rugby Union has not offered him an extention of his contract beyond the current Rugby World Cup.
While talks are ongoing at SARU about Meyer’s future, it is understood the Bulls would be happy to return him and his management team to Loftus if he doesn’t continue as Bok coach after the World Cup.
There are several concerns about the way things are run at Loftus at the moment, not the least being contracting and the way players systematically leave every season and do better at their new provinces.
The host of former Bulls players who have been part of the Emirates Lions resurgence is just one example of this happening, while the lack of transformation at the union is also a valid concern.
After the Rebels loss on Saturday, Ludeke said there were “no excuses” and that they “accepted responsibility” for not making the playoffs.
Despite a shocking TMO decision that probably cost them the game when Burger Odendaal’s legitimate try was disallowed, Ludeke wouldn’t blame the officials.
"It is the story of the season if you look at a try from Burger where he was over but they couldn’t see it but they made the call," Ludeke said.
"That is how close our season was even with the Hurricanes but we take responsibility for it and at the end of the day it wasn’t good enough."
It was the 11th consecutive loss for the Bulls abroad, the second consecutive tour which they finished winless and led to them missing the playoffs for the second year in a row.
"It is a huge disappointment to be winless on the tour, especially when you put in a huge effort every week," Ludeke said.
"It doesn’t show between the four lines but mentally and physically a huge efforts goes into the preparation for a game like that."
"We accept that it is not good enough, we felt like we had the talent, we had a really good squad of players together," he said.
"There are no excuses, but I’ve learnt from my experience the last few years I’ve been involved in the competition that it takes time to build that belief in a squad."
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