From Cape Town to Sydney

This week sport365 columnist and former Springbok centre Robbie Fleck has a look closer to home as the ongoing coaching crisis in Cape Town – at Western Province and the Stormers – threatens to destroy a once-proud rugby union.

There’s plenty to talk about this week, ranging from coaching troubles here in Cape Town, to the Springboks getting ready to show the Wallabies a thing or two in Sydney.

The question on everyone’s lips is – can the ‘B-Team’ Boks do it? I think they can, but more of that later…

Let’s first kick things off this week by discussing the latest happenings in Boundary Road, Newlands, where my first Springbok coach Nick Mallett has just announced that he won’t be re-applying for his job as Director of Rugby.

Simply put – Mallett’s departure is a huge loss for Western Province and the Stormers.

Nick’s heart was in it at WP and he wanted to take Province back to the top of the pile; he comes with an impressive CV, having coached the Boks, but also achieving so much in Paris with Stade Français. He had many goals and ideals to achieve in his three-year plan at WP, ranging from getting former players involved at grass-roots level, to developing rugby right across the board for every age and colour.

He was the right man for the job and he had a vision.

That vision is now in tatters; it has cost the union a lot of money, but more worryingly, Nick’s departure has set WP back 10 years. To be honest, it’s a joke that he was not able to – or allowed to – achieve his goals.

I know, for a fact, that Nick had the required support in the Pty, but the union, sadly, have their own agendas and their lack of support is ultimately what has driven him away. Nick is not scared of ruffling feathers and I have never seen him stand back to anyone – yet, he is now, what does that tell you? I can’t blame Nick for deciding not to re-apply for his job – how the hell could he be expected to do a half-decent job without the necessary support at Board level?

A Director of Rugby should have the final say on who the coach is and which players should be recruited; he shouldn’t have to fight three months’ worth of red tape to make one thing happen, he should have Carte Blanche to hire any coach – no matter who and at any price. He cannot be expected to support a coach that he clearly does not rate.

Also, how can they expect the Director of Rugby to coach in the Super 14? It’s like asking the Managing Director of a top-notch business to be the CEO and also hold down a day-to-day sales job. Aside from the extra pressures that come with coaching at Super 14 level, Nick also knows just how thankless coaching in this country is. Again, I couldn’t agree with his decision any more. Rassie Erasmus would make a fine Stormers head coach, but he needs somebody like Nick above him, to answer to and to protect him from the next tier, so that he can get on with what he does best – coach.

Nick, however, is not alone and all coaches, successful or not, that have worked down here have been affected by the in-fighting and politics at WP. It’s like a cancer spreading through the union – the best brand, the best team and the best supporters are being governed by a bunch of amateurs, who have their own agenda.

WP should take a leaf out of the Bulls and Sharks’ books in terms of professionalism.

At the Sharks, Rudolf Straeuli – the union’s Commercial Manager – has been given Carte Blanche by Brian van Zyl (his biggest supporter) to do what he wants. Having said that, Straeuli’s so-called ‘magic touch’ is all down to Dick Muir’s astute coaching and recruitment and it will be a sad day in Durban when Straeuli starts getting the better of Dick – as we saw last week with the news that David Campese had been ‘let go’. It is, however, a prime example of the Carte Blanche that a DoR needs – even though Straeuli is not as open-minded and easy to communicate with like, say, Nick Mallett.

When I joined Bath after having been at WP since 1997, the first person I reported to was my new boss, the owner of the club. I then met the Director of Rugby and only then did I meet the coach. All clubs run things like that in Europe, they’re 10 times more efficient than the unions in SA. WP, in comparison, are amateurs – as they showed by losing to Boland last weekend.

If you ask me, I would say the Bulls and Sharks are even more professional than the Springboks, who don’t even have a Director of Rugby! Poor old Jake White has to take all the hits himself as the Bok coach and he can hardly be blamed for saying or doing some of the stuff he has done since 2004.

Whilst on the topic of Jake and the Boks, it’s time to look ahead to this weekend and Australia against South Africa in Sydney…

The team that Jake has chosen is pretty much as expected, although I’m very disappointed for Cobus Visagie, who seems to have lost his chance to push for his second World Cup appearance. I know it was a big ask for Cobus to come in at such short notice and make an instant success of his recall, but he is a determined bloke and he would have given it a good bash. Cobus, good luck, I hope to see you back in the mix sooner rather than later.

The rest of the team, given Jake’s initial squad, picks itself, but it’s great to see Bob Skinstad in charge – his selection, as captain, is an inspired one. If anybody can lead an experimental side to victory against the Wallabies, in Australia, it’s Bob. He is a smart cookie and he will be using all this negativity in the Aussie media to fire his team up. Bob is a fantastic motivator and he would have been reminding everyone in his squad this week just how the Aussies have written them off.

I mentioned in a previous column that Australia treated their match – against the Boks – in Cape Town as a one-off and that is exactly what the Boks should be doing ahead of this weekend. Beat the Wallabies on Saturday and it’s half the job done; a 50 per cent success-rate no matter what happens against the All Blacks against the following week. Supposedly better Bok teams have done worse in Australasia in the past. I was there, I should know.

Of course, if they lose to the Wallabies, the All Blacks Test suddenly becomes a tougher proposition, but they should not even be thinking like that. Their focus must be solely on this weekend… and nothing else. That is what Bob will ensure – he will lay down the law this week in no uncertain terms.

Cobus’s loss is a setback to the Boks, who will no doubt still look to attack the Wallaby scrum. The Aussies are scared of Cobus and Matt Dunning will be sleeping a lot better knowing that Cobus won’t be around come Saturday. Dunning might have put on eight kilo’s, or something to that effect, but he remains the weak link in their scrum – no matter how much smoke the Aussie media is blowing up his arse!

The Aussies are, however, clever scrummagers and if they don’t get the hit, they will pull the scrum down. Have a look, again, at last week’s match; the Aussies pulled the scrum down whenever Carl Hayman got the hit on Dunning. It’s an old Michael Foley tactic, I should know that from my Bath days… If they don’t get the hit – watch the scrum go down. Jannie du Plessis will have to keep an eye out for that.

So, can the Boks do it?

Well, I think it will be very close. In fact, it will be very close to a draw, almost too close to call. My heart is saying Boks, but not by much. Don’t expect a high-scoring match, the Boks will kick a lot – through halfbacks Ruan Pienaar and Derick Hougaard – and they will look to squeeze the points out of the Wallabies.

Australia have been the best defensive team in this year’s Tri-Nations, but if our tight five gets on top of theirs, Hougaard can kick his goals and then the Boks have got to defend like their lives depend on it and hold on until the final whistle. Either way, it would be a massive psychological victory for South Africa.

If the Boks pull through, at least some of the moaning will stop Down Under! The Aussies have not stopped bleating and now David Moffett – the former head of NZ and Wales Rugby – has also joined in.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are plenty of hidden agendas, especially with the current News Corp deal set to be renegotiated in 2010. All three SANZAR countries are jostling for the biggest stake in the television rights’ pie – like SA got in 1995, and rightly so, after winning the Rugby World Cup – but a Super 14 or Tri-Nations without South Africa still seems like a pipe-dream at this stage.

I have no qualms at the Kiwis and Aussies having a go at SARU for the way they are running the game in this country. That, however, is another story altogether. They need the Springboks in the Super 14 and Tri-Nations… It just wouldn’t be the same without us…

Chat next week,
Fleckie

* Fleckie’s ‘Last Word’ will appear weekly on sport365.co.za – and also on rugby365.com and iafrica.com – so log on next week for some more opinions and in-depth analysis from the 31-times capped Springbok centre. Also, feel free to mail Fleckie at sport365@365digital.co.za with any comments or queries you might have.

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