Springbok coaching team

Here they are

Rassie Erasmus - Director of Rugby
Jacques Nienaber - Head coach
Mzwandile Stick - Assistant coach
Deon Davids - Assistant coach
Felix Jones - Assistant coach
Daan Human - Scrum consultant 

Always brilliant -  Erasmus wanted a coaching Consultant to monitor the many SA players playing for clubs in Europe and appointed Jones for that purpose.   He will be stationed in Ireland and from there frequently attend club matches  featuring SA players who are already Springboks, but also others who are not and report back on player performances.   He will also be responsible as link between the coaching setup and the players in Europe.      

Deon Davids is the forward's coach

Stick is apparently the skills coach

Looks like Rassie will still be involved and probably the way he likes to run things. I think he wanted to do the same thing with Alastair, but we all know where that ended up

So, will have to wait and see what 2020 looks like for the Boks, but for now, we have the World Cup and hopefully we can kick on and start winning at least 90% of our games

Interesting Mike....does that mean the rules for Bok eligibility have changed and European players are now available without constraint?

Mozart, Rassie made an announcement last year that they will start enforcing Rule 'x' which prohibits Foreign clubs from preventing players attending training camps. It means that every foreign club that signs a bok will have to release the player when training camps start. This has always been a problem with the Boks in the past. 

So looks like the Boks are embracing foreign players

Thanks Corn....that’s a good thing because the NH is where the money is. I was under the impression we still had the 30 test rule for Bok eligibility if you were playing overseas.

Yes, Kingcorn is correct. Rassie made it very clear in the media that the Boks would invoke the IRB law that any player must be made available if the Boks wants them. 

Rassie even said that if this is a problem for Northern Hemisphere clubs, then his recommendation is not to sign SA players that are good enough to be current Boks.

So maybe young players leaving SA shores as teenagers may prefer to not be selected for a country like France if they have a chance of still playing for SA.

sharkbok I hope you are correct because if not then Springbok rugby will be a thing of the past.  

Here’s the immediate threat to Bok rugby, a confusion about who the coach really is:

The striking feature, amidst what seemed at instant glance quite a mouthful of new-agey spin, is the significant extent to which Erasmus will remain active in the day-to-day machinations of the Springboks.

Or put it this way: I have never previously been aware of a Bok coach, upon installation, being involved in quite such a buck-sharing, it would appear, arrangement with the director immediately above him.

Nienaber is "promoted to the headline role", although Erasmus will still "carry the responsibility for Springbok performances".

In the words of Erasmus, latched onto the media release: "Jacques will be responsible for the Test match preparation and day-to-day team operations but ... I will be with the team for the majority of the time and in the coaches' box with Jacques at matches.

"I'll still be responsible for the strategy and results with Jacques taking operational control."

There is even an admission from Nienaber himself that "it's a big step up for me ... (but) in many ways it will also be business as usual".

It is difficult to imagine any gnarly, well-travelled head coach like an Eddie Jones, Steve Hansen or our own Jake White or Nick Mallett, for example, being so willing to have a superior breathing in such close range to his neck.

But maybe that's the whole point, and simply a deadeye honest acknowledgement by Nienaber that he is quite prepared to have the RWC 2019 mastermind intimately involved - yes, even largely like before - while he painstakingly cuts his teeth and develops his personality as a head coach for the first time at any level of the game.

As long as they sing routinely enough from the same song-sheet, against that terms-and-conditions backdrop, then all should be relatively dandy, especially with the additional SA Rugby insistence that continuity is a key aspiration after the heart-warming events in Japan last year.

Why would Bok fans wish for anything else at this point, really?

......the first thing Houwing has written with a bit of bite. Erasmus will be in the box! What is Nienaber then, the main decision maker....or the second decision maker in the box?

Other questions are ....who takes over the defensive specialty from Nienaber? Is Davids the right forwards coach? What will Stick do? Where is the backline brains in this group.

Bit of a dog’s breakfast.

Mozart

Some of the questions are reasonable so reasonable comments are called for,  

At the time coaches like Mallett, White, etc the concept of Director of Rugby did not exist in rugby - but soccer embraced he concept.  The idea was to ensure there  were some co- ordination between supply of players and their usage by the clubs,   Simultaneously there was a need for management if the coaches through a structure that allow for some control over coaches.   Appointment of coaches did not always result in coaches be successful and management became a problem,

The system was adopted by rugby as well and is at present widely used on both test and club level,   The problem  was with the fact that rugby only became a professional sport in 1995 and coaches were appointed by rugby administrations without the professional element being in evidence,  SA had endless problems with coaching since 1996 and even successful coaches turned sour by getting out of control like for instance Mallett,   Since 2000 until 2012  South Africa only had one good coach (White) - the rest were all mediocre.   

Following the example of Western Province where the system worked well - while Erasmus was Director of Rugby and Coetzee the coach - but broke down after Coetzee stopped co-operating - and seeing the initial positives, SARU in 2012 appointed Erasmus as Director of Rugby and Meyer as Head Coach with Erasmus being organizational head of Meyer in the organizational structure of SARU.

The initial idea was that there should be close co-operation between Erasmus and Meyer, but it did not happen,   By the end of 2014 it became clear that the Springboks were in trouble and o the period from the November tests that year up to the start if the World Cup the situation became extremely bad with the Springboks only winning 3 tests out of 8 played and the loss  against Japan in the WC was clearly the final nail in the coffin of Meyer coaching,   

When Coetzee was appointed the initial idea was that the co-operation of Erasmus an Coetzee would be essential and the natter was even raised in the media,   However, Coetzee was not prepared to co-operate with Erasmus and the latter saw a disaster in the making and Erasmus resigned as Director of Rugby and took up the same position at Munster,  Unfortunately the Munster Head Coach suddenly died in Paris and Erasmus as Director pf rugby took over the coaching himself up to the end of 2017 when Van Graan was appointed as Head Coach,

When desperate SARU sent their President and CEO to convince Erasmus to return to SA, Erasmus said he would only return if some conditions were met by SARU,   Amongst those were -

*   That he be appointed as Director of Rugby'

*   That SARU agrees to enforce strictly their organizational structure ensuring co-operation             between the Director if Rugby and the Head Coach

*    that he will select the supporting coaching staff and SARU will confirm the appointments,

*    That he and the coaching staff will select the Springbok squad and team selection for tests.

When Coetzee refused to co-operate he was a goner,    However, the rest of the agreement is still in place,   There is no way that the Director of Rugby and the Head Coach could be successful i f there is no co-operation between the two,                                          

Jeebus, is that another Houwing article you copied, Moz? I can barely - or in fact possibly but not necessarily at all - make out - if indeed it is remotely or even somewhat possible - what he is trying - with decidedly flowery, if not quite the whole garden of text - to say.

This arrangement will probably only work with the current parties involved...they obviously know exactly where they stand with each other. 

This was part of the Rassie plan back in 2016, before SA Rugby decided to rather appoint Coetzee. Deon Davids was part of the plan back then too...I think Rassie was behind his involvement at the Kings.

Jislaaik Pakie, daai was 'n mondvol!

Selfs ou Mike skryf beter as Houwing, Draad.

I'm  not a fan either. 

The poor man’s Charles Fortune.  On the subject I think it will work as long as the pressure isn’t on....lose a few and who is accountable Nienaber or Rassie who by then will probably have overruled him.

I can’t think of one example, in any sport, in any generation ....where this idea has worked.

Try 90% of the soccer and Rugby teams  for starters. 

Try 90% of the soccer and Rugby teams  for starters. 

N o backline coach?

100% of rugby teams have coaches that make the real-time decisions about what should be done  on the field....as opposed to Directors of Rugby making those  decisions.

Balls - get real for a change.