The stat that's the pièce de résistance of SA's impact on URC
OPINION: The United Rugby Championship playoffs have become a South African coaching convention.
While the Bulls, Stormers, and Lions all booked quarterfinal spots in the same season for the first time, the bigger story sits behind the scenes: six South Africans are part of the coaching setups guiding the URC’s final eight teams.
From Glasgow Warriors boss Franco Smith and Stormers director John Dobson to Jacques Nienaber at Leinster, SA rugby’s intellectual export is dominating the business end of the competition.
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For Ivan van Rooyen and his Lions, their first appearance in the play-offs is a momentous occasion.
They certainly have the toughest task. Travelling to Dublin is something they are familiar with, given their loss at Lansdowne Road a fortnight ago.
Corniel van Zyl and his Cardiff team will also make their first play-off appearance.
I am going to take a look at the proficiency and capacity of each of the South Africans.
Glasgow Warriors: Franco Smith
Petrus Francois Smith has had a few interesting turns in his coaching career. It included Cheetahs (assistant), Treviso (head coach), Cheetahs (assistant again) and Shimlas (head coach), before finally taking on the Cheetahs head coach role from 2015 to 2019.
In November 2019, Smith was named as Italy’s interim head coach following the resignation of Conor O’Shea. Smith coached the team during their 2020 Six Nations Championship campaign. The appointment was made permanent on June 1, 2020. On May 19 2021, it was announced that Smith would step up to a new role as Head of High Performance, focusing on all levels of domestic and international rugby for the Italian federation.
On August 2, 2022, it was announced that Smith would be the Head Coach of Glasgow Warriors, a move that has already seen them win the URC in 2024 and the Scottish/Italian Shield on four occasions (2022–23), (2023–24), (2024–25), (2025–26).
A masterful analytical brain that has already been linked to the Scotland and Springbok (post Rassie Erasmus) coaching jobs.
Stormers: John Dobson
John Dobson has often described himself as an ‘accidental coach’, having taken up the UCT (Ikey Tigers) first team job while still playing for and coaching the fourths. It was an ’emergency’ appointment, but it has taken him on a wild ride.
As a player, Dobson played hooker for Western Province, as well as amateur club sides in the Western Province Super League such as Ikey Tigers, Villagers, and Northerns. He also had spells in Italy at Valpolicella, Verona and Portugal.
From his Varsity Cup beginnings in 2008, Dobson has gone on to coach WP age group teams with great success, before winning the Vodacom Cup with the senior team. In February 2015, he was appointed as head coach of Western Province’s Currie Cup team, before taking over the Stormers and being instrumental in securing a private equity deal, eventually changing titles to Director of Rugby, as well as winning the inaugural URC title.
An esteemed motivator, Dobson holds a law degree, a master’s degree in Business Administration, and another one in Creative Writing, attained at the University of Cape Town.
Leinster: Jacques Nienaber (senior coach under head coach Leo Cullen)
Jacques Nienaber, who led South Africa to their fourth World Cup title in France in 2023, was initially an ‘understudy’ to and analyst for Rassie Erasmus at the Cheetahs.
The qualified physiotherapist has worked for the Bloemfontein-based Cheetahs in that capacity since 1997. In 2004, he also took over the role of Strength and Conditioning Coach at the Cheetahs. He remained in that role when Erasmus took over as head coach in 2005, in a season that saw the team win the Currie Cup trophy for only the second time in their history.
He followed Erasmus to Cape Town (the Stormers) in 2008, moving into a role as a defence coach.
In April 2016, when Erasmus was appointed as Director of Rugby at Munster on a three-year contract, Nienaber again followed, joining the Irish province as a defence coach.
When Erasmus accepted the position of Director of Rugby at the South African Rugby Union in 2018, he made sure that his lieutenant, Nienaber, would have a role to play in the South African national set-up. Together they won the World Cups in 2019 (Erasmus as head coach) and 2023 (Nienaber as head coach).
Bulls: Johan Ackermann
Johannes Nicolaas Ackermann, a devout Christian, was a no-nonsense lock during his playing career between 1995 and 2007, featuring in 13 Tests, the last of those in 2007 at age 37.
He featured in nearly 200 first-class matches for the various adaptations of the Bulls, Lions, Cats, Northampton Saints, Griquas and Sharks.
Ackermann started his coaching career as the forwards coach of the Lions in Super Rugby under head coach John Mitchell, but after Mitchell left the Union, he took over.
Starting with a ‘no-name’ brand team in 2013 (when the Lions were axed from Super Rugby to make way for the Southern Kings). Ackermann tasted success as Coach of the Year in 2014. He reached two Super Rugby finals, 2016 and 2017, before moving to English Premiership side Gloucester before the 2017–18 season.
He left Gloucester at the end of June 2020 to become a coach at Japanese side Red Hurricanes.
On July 16 last year, he was unveiled as the new head coach for the Bulls, taking them to play-offs and a top-four finish in his first season, despite an inauspicious start that included seven successive defeats.
Soft-spoken and very religious, he is known for gathering the right collection of assistants to suit his expansive approach to the game.
Cardiff: Corniel van Zyl
Casparus Cornelius van Zyl is another South African player with deep roots in the Italian game. Van Zyl was part of the Italian squad at the 2011 World Cup and played 160-odd games for Treviso, after stints with the Pumas, Rotherham Titans and Cheetahs.
He played for Italian side Treviso for eight seasons, 2007 to 2015, before retiring as a player to become the forwards coach at the Cheetahs.
Van Zyl left the Cheetahs in 2020 and joined London Irish as an assistant coach on January 30, 2021.
He returned to Treviso in 2023 (as an assistant coach), before moving to Cardiff last year as a forwards coach in 2024. He stepped up to lead the squad as an interim head coach after Matt Sherratt’s departure to Steve Tandy’s backroom Wales staff, just before the 2025-26 season started.
It was midway through the season that Cardiff made his appointment permanent, and he repaid the faith by leading them to their first URC play-off spot.
Lions: Ivan van Rooyen
Ivan van Rooyen has been involved in the Lions structures since 2009, starting as a sport scientist and becoming Performance Excellence Manager in 2018.
He first worked under Johan Ackermann and Swys de Bruin as a conditioning expert, before evolving into the head coach role after De Bruin’s departure in 2019.
It has not been smooth sailing, and at one stage, his win rate was a lowly 40 percent.
However, the current season saw a settled Lions team go on an unprecedented six-game winning streak, eventually booking their play-off spot with a seventh-place finish and a seat at Europe’s main table, the Champions Cup, next season.
