It is to easy to blame Alistair, but anybody that has been following his career for the last 10 years would have told you that he has merely been window dressing.
Back in 2005 White had to bring Coetzee in as backline coach. At the time I couldn't figure out why and who this guy was. At the same time, the Boks all of a sudden started stop playing attacking rugby.... only for Jake to rope Eddie Jones in for the world cup and the Boks were back playing good attacking rugby
The year before the boks won the Tri-Nations with some pretty gutsy performances. Bar it that players like Jean de Villiers and Jacque Fouries were still finding their feet and actually played on the wing at the time. The boks narrowly lost to the all blacks in New Zealand but completely destroyed them with a 45 - 25 scoreline at Ellis Park to take the honours.
In 2003 we had Rudolph Strauli that completely ruined our rugby.
Fast forward and Coetzee found himself at the Stormers. At the time Rassie spend the good part of 3 years putting the structures in place, but before Rassie Nick Mallet was there too for a couple of years. All of sudden WP youngsters were dominating in the age groups. Alistair comes in gets a free ticket. Everytime WP flounders, Rassie comes in to sort out his mess. The next year the WP wins the currie cup.
He then went on to coach the Stormers and they actually top the log only for poor game management that ended up undoing their hard work all season and for the Stormes to lose the Semi finals. This happened everytime the Stormers got into the final with home advantage no thanks to Alistair.
Coetzee was riding on the tail coat of Rassie Erasmus as he gave him the game plan, the staff and the players. All he had to do is show up.
Rassie got fed up with the Immatureness of the WP board and resigned. Rassie parachuted in to help Piet Snor and the boks started to look again but it was to late.
While Coetzee was messing up Rugby, Rassie was working for Saru and it was believed that he would be Meyers natural successor but all of a sudden Coetzee landed the job at which time Rassie packed his bags and headed to Munster.
Coetzee now founds himself without Rassie and his coaches or knowing what to do with the players that Rassie groomed. I actually had a feeling that Elton would struggle to play under Coetzee, most players would.
He has never been a real coach, only cosmetic and it was always Rassie and Jake that made him look good.
Unless Saru admits their mistake and get the best coaches, bring Rassie and co. Give central contract to the top 150 players in SA and work with the unions and use the same blue print of the lions we will suffer until there are no more Boks.
The reason why i mentioned the Lions is that Ackerman and the Chairman of the lions were put in a position where they had to work together or there would be no more lions rugby. They got kicked out of Super Rugby, but deservedly as they were a complete mess. In comes Ackerman, the union manages to hold to their core players. Arranges for 11 games for them to play all over the world while they are out of the Super Rugby and in the end got their place back.
They used the resources they had and worked with the same players for many years to mould them into the team they are today. The Stormers did that for a while and so did the bulls not to mention the Sharks. Just imagine if we have our unions firing on all cylinders and holding onto their players and making sure the boks have depth and quality.
At the top we would have the best Coaches who made their way up through all of the unions. None of this, I'm coach now so I'm taking all of my coaches out of the union which Meyer did at the bulls.
Coetzee has no more good coac hes behind him that does all the grunt work while he gets all the recognition. The best coaches have wisened up and they have simply stated no more of this rubbish.
Pro3,695 posts
09 Oct 2016, 17:35
#1
09 Oct 2016, 17:35#1


