London Irish have announced the appointment of Brendan Venter as their technical director, thus lengthening the list of South African coaches who are currently working overseas. The brain drain, as it is referred to by some, is seen as a negative, but it needn’t be.
The outflow of coaches could actually be a positive for South African rugby – provided that the administrators who are responsible for hiring and firing coaches back home see the outflow of coaches for what it could be, which is an opportunity for those coaches to grow.
When it comes to players leaving, the drain of talent is a concern. That is in the sense that a player has a limited career-span and, particularly when it comes to the exodus of young players, it should be a source of angst that the country that teaches them their rugby doesn’t get to use them or see them at their peak.
Coaches have a much longer time-span to work with, and somehow it is hard to imagine someone like Rassie Erasmus wanting to live out of South Africa forever. So the brain drain is only a problem if the coaches who go overseas to ply their trade are barred from coming back to provide South Africa with the benefit of what they learn from working in a different rugby culture and environment.
If it were not for his loathing of aspects of the South African system, Nick Mallett might have been the perfect example of the benefits of going overseas. When I interviewed him for the first edition of my book on the Springbok post-isolation coaches, The Poisoned Chalice, Mallett spoke about how much he matured and changed as a coach when he coached successfully in France after he moved on from the Bok job.
World Cup-winning coach Jake White would be another example. Due to injuries and other extraneous factors, White’s stint at the Sharks perhaps never realised the success he would have hoped for, but he has to be a better coach now than he was when he guided the Boks to World Cup glory in 2007 following successful stints at the Brumbies and Montpellier.
White is also a perfect example of another point that needs to be made about the flow of coaches between countries – it is a two way street. The Brumbies, and by extension Australia, have undeniably benefited from White’s time in Canberra in terms of the improvements that have been made to aspects such as the driving maul and, for a time at the Brumbies, their kicking game.
It is not just the money that would have to be paid that prevents more foreign coaches from working in South Africa. There is also a crude form of xenophobia that was made evident in the opposition directed at Harry Viljoen when, during his stint as Bok coach, he employed a clutch of Australians, several of whom have subsequently been successful with other international teams. There was also enmity towards White when he employed former Wallaby coach Eddie Jones as an assistant.
There has been some petty small-mindedness that has stood in the way of the appointment of foreign coaches, such as when Western Province director of rugby Gert Smal pushed for a foreign coach for the Stormers in a quest to promote “a cross-pollination of ideas”. Smal, having worked for the Ireland national team as an assistant coach, knows about the benefits of having different voices from different backgrounds and cultures in a management team.
Smal might be a good example of why the brain drain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. His work at WP is not easily quantifiable from a coaching perspective as officially he’s not a hands on coach but a director of rugby, yet it would be naïve to think that the Stormers are not deriving benefit from the experience Smal gained in Ireland.
Smal wanted a coach who had experience of coaching the expansive brand of rugby he’d like to see his teams play. And to do that, you need to go to Australia or New Zealand, as so many of the Six Nations and other international teams have done. Most, such as England, have profited as a result.
In a slightly different way, New Zealand has also profited from the two-way street created by having coaches travel overseas. Both their most recent World Cup winning coaches, Graham Henry and Steve Hansen, have also coached Wales.
It isn’t a coincidence that the only local coach proving really successful with a team playing the expansive game South Africans are now demanding is the Lions’ Johan Ackermann. The former Bok lock spent the last part of his playing career being coached by a New Zealander in John Plumtree and then spent the formative part of his coaching career working with another Kiwi in John Mitchell.
South African born coaches should be encouraged to travel overseas to broaden themselves, and foreign coaches should be made to feel welcome in South Africa if it improves the skills of individual players and broadens the options of local teams when it comes to playing style. Being exposed to outside ideas can also only grow the abilities of home-based South African coaches.
Only Gavin what does all this help if we get a quota Bok coach. But let' s be all PC and not mention that!!
