"The second instalment of the SA Rugby coaches’ indaba was held on Monday in Cape Town, where the Springbok coaching staff and the Vodacom Super Rugby head coaches continued with discussions to map a strategic blueprint for South African rugby.
Also in attendance were the SA Rugby Union President, Mark Alexander and James Stoffberg, chairperson of the SA Rugby High Performance Committee.
Monday’s assembly was a resumption of the ground-breaking coaches’ indaba held in Cape Town two months ago, with the main aim of designing a new direction for Springbok rugby and to address on-field performance by South African teams.
“As a result of the excellent collaboration between our coaches at the Indaba, we now have the guiding principles of a much needed blueprint for South African rugby,” said Alexander.
“Since the pioneering first meeting took place in October, we have witnessed how our coaching, conditioning and medical experts all come together in a fantastic show of unity, to collaborate and plot ways to improve South African rugby.”
According to Coetzee, he had been excited by the Indaba and the willingness of all stakeholders to contribute towards improving the local game.
“The blueprint for SA Rugby is now at an advanced stage and the decisions from today’s meeting will be incorporated in a document which we will finalise early next year. We discussed certain skills sets and fundamentals which will ensure players meet the required Springbok standards,” said Coetzee.
“We also looked at the 2017 international calendar with the aim to optimise preparation time of the Springboks and presented the outcomes of the conditioning workshop held last week.”
Other discussion topics included learnings from the 2016 season, player contracting, player retention and succession planning.
The next meeting will be held early next year, before the start of the 2017 Vodacom Super Rugby campaign."
The talkshop in October 2016 produced NOTHING other than the embarrassment of the EOYT. So is this talkshop is being labelled as an advance - and I am afraid it is also an exercise in futility. Nothing constructive will come out of the mess already in existence.
We will struggle on in Super Rugby and some further embarrassments are inevitable - and then lose the June test series against France and another fruitless talk shop will be held.
In the meantime the ANC will celebrate the capture of SA Rugby and its decline into dustbin obscurity.
