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Lloyd Burnard - Sport24
Cape Town - Whoever the next Springbok coach is will enter the job knowing that making strides in transformation is his - or her - primary mandate.
Anything less than winning a Rugby World Cup is considered a failure by the South African Rugby Union (SARU), but the implication from president Oregan Hoskins on Friday was that performance will fall behind transformation on South African rugby's list of priorities over the next four years.
"Whoever wants to apply for the job needs to know that transformation is going to be on
top of his agenda, or else he shouldn’t apply,"
Hoskins said.
"We as an organisation are going to have to be
much, much harder than we’ve ever been.
We don’t have another opportunity. We’ve signed
an agreement with the sports governing body
in the country (SASCOC) and the ministry and
we believe in it. So as a sport we need to go forward
with that in mind."
The agreement that Hoskins was speaking of states
that the Springboks will have 50/50 player
representation by 2019.
Transformation is an area where outgoing coach
Heyneke Meyer failed to win over his critics, and
that is something that Hoskins and SARU are not
prepared to let happen again.
But, at what point does administrative interference
become too much? It is, after all, the coach who is
tasked with selecting the side most capable of winning
matches.
"You will recall that when Peter de Villiers became the
coach, SARU had taken a decision that the president
and the leadership should not interfere with selection,"
said Hoskins.
"That’s still the policy at the moment. It’s always been a
case of the coach selecting the team and we haven’t
changed that policy. We might have to look at it going
forward but that wasn’t the case for the last two coaches."
According to Hoskins, Meyer was fully aware of the
transformation policies and ambitions of SARU.
"When you’re an administrator you’re asked to
administer the game and you appoint coaches to
select a team, and you put your faith in those
coaches," he said.
"In terms of best practice, I think that is the right thing
to do. Sometimes I do, as president of SARU,
I stand back, and I question the fact that more
players of colour should have played.
"That’s my own experience as a South African,
so I’m not disaffected by what happens.
I come from a background where I want to see
that happening more and more, but there is a thin line
between interfering in the team because of the
moral imperative that we require more transformation.
.. where do I draw the line in terms of interference?
"You find that, as an administrator, you might play
the player of colour over the white player. But then
it’ll probably go into ‘I prefer this flyhalf to that flyhalf’,
and it doesn’t end. So I might as well be the
president/coach/selector ... and I don’t think that’s
going to happen."
So, it appears that the next coach will still have free reign
to select the side that he wants. As long as it's
not the wrong one.
"It is an important issue, it was important when we
signed that agreement with SASCOC and with
government, and we have a duty to stick to our
side of the agreement," said Hoskins.
SARU is set to meet on December 11 where
they will map out the process of appointing the
new Springbok coach.
