I encountered much incredulity during my two days at the Cape Town Sevens from people who asked me what was happening with the Stormers coaching situation. Obviously this is the time of year when people don’t read much rugby, for several fans were so shocked to hear that Robbie Fleck was taking over that they refused to believe it was true.
It is true though, and while I have nothing against Fleck, and understand he is developing into a good coach, I completely understood the utter shock of those who struggled to understand, as one person put it, how Western Province can go from “Eddie Jones to Robbie Fleck”.
That same person added, “well done Gert Smal”, and I know where he’s coming from. When Smal came in as director of rugby one of his briefs was supposedly to assemble a strong, winning coaching team, but since his arrival in mid-2014 the Stormers have lost a head coach in Allister Coetzee and the best defence coach in the country in Jacques Nienaber. They’ve gained a forwards coach who has only coached at under-21 level before now and a defence coach who boasts only Sevens experience. (INCREDIBLE REALLY!)
Sorry, that doesn’t look good for Smal’s legacy so far, but then I find it hard to blame him as I know he punted John Mitchell for the role of head coach once it became clear that Jones was moving on. Jones and Mitchell are both highly experienced and extensively travelled coaches, who would have been equipped to develop a young coaching team, and Fleck would have grown considerably under them too, just as current Lions coach Johan Ackermann did when he worked with Mitchell.
As the director of rugby, it is Smal’s job to bring the expertise that the elected and paid officials above him lack when it comes to appointing coaches, and few would disagree that, if he recommended Mitchell for the job, then that is the decision that should have been stuck with.(Agree he is a nz oak but we have made him a better man!)
However, I understand that what skewed it for Mitchell was a phone call made by someone from the Lions to WP president Thelo Wakefield outlining a multitude of reasons, based on events of three-and-a-half years ago, why he shouldn’t go for Mitchell as the Stormers coach. (LIons must keep their long snouts out of our business thanks!)
If that story is true, and I heard it from a good source, then it would be odd coming from the Lions, as they should understand that through time people can undergo personal growth (Yeh give him a chance as he was afterall born in nz - hahahahahahahhaha). They have a very successful chief executive running their ship at the moment, who they would never have looked at 12 years ago when he was being vilified for Kamp Staaldraad. Rudolf Straeuli will tell you he has grown since then, and he has. So has Mitchell grown since 2012.
There might be someone from the Lions pursuing a personal vendetta against Mitchell, but there could also be another possibility: the Lions and the Stormers look likely to be the more successful South African unions over the next few years, and the Lions know damn well that, while they fell out with Mitchell, he is an extremely competent coach who could turn the Stormers into a champion franchise. So well done Thelo, you may have been sold the perfect dummy. (The oak isa dummy!!)
Fleck doesn’t in any way fit the specifications for the Stormers coach laid out by Smal when Jones left, but then, judging from what has transpired, it doesn’t appear that the final decision rests with him at all. In fact, the directorship might be a lame duck position in the sense that he is supposed to be the man where the buck stops, but how can it if he doesn’t get the coach he wants? (Smal should have been more careful with his contract?)
I am a big supporter of the director of rugby concept as it circumvents the real cancer that is keeping, not just WP rugby, but also SA rugby back – namely the continued influence of elected officials who just aren’t qualified to make the big decisions relating to the hiring and firing of coaches that they do. (YThe brain dead suits have been stuffing up WP rugby for some time)
I was in full accord when a couple of years ago Nick Mallett told me the reason he will never work as a coach in South Africa again is because of the “self-perpetuating incompetence” of the amateur elected officials, who he felt just weren’t qualified to hire and fire coaches as they never knew enough about the modern game.
Mallett told me that when he was interviewed for the England job he went in front of a panel loaded with people who had recently achieved success as coaches. He was asked proper rugby questions during the process, but he never had the same experience when interviewed for coaching jobs in South Africa. He felt the people interviewing him didn’t have the tactical acumen to properly assess his worth.
And that really is the problem, not for just WP, but for South Africa. Should the provincial presidents, who mostly don’t boast much success when it comes to employing coaches at their own unions, be having a major say in the appointment of the next Springbok coach?
Which brings up Wakefield’s name again, for he was recently quoted in the media endorsing Allister Coetzee’s candidacy to take over from Heyneke Meyer. And yet it was Wakefield who 18 months ago engineered the appointment of Smal as WP director of rugby in order to bolster Coetzee when the Stormers were struggling in Super Rugby.(Wakefield is all about quotas )
Before that the interference of the likes of Wakefield in his day-to-day job was one of the main reasons that Rassie Erasmus decided to end his successful stint at Newlands before he had properly reached the goal he was striving for.
Perhaps in the end it all comes down to accountability. The people who employ the coaches and then fire them always somehow manage to stay in their positions regardless of whether the horse they backed was the right one. Smal should be accountable for the Stormers performances next year as he is the director of rugby, but he didn’t get the coach he wanted. Surely then the buck should now stop squarely with the president of the union.
Excellent article Gavin Rich. Time somebody told it like it is!
