Durban - The surprise announcement that Jacques Nienaber is to call it a day as Springbok coach after the World Cup in October begs the question of who will succeed him?
The answer has surely been there all along in the form of the two assistant coaches, Deon Davids and Mzwandile Stick, and the real conjecture is which of them will assume the head coach mantle.
What would be a real shock is if the aforementioned pair were overlooked and an outsider to the current coaching structure was brought in above them.
What message would that send out?
Davids and Stick were the coaches when the Southern Kings played exciting rugby in 2017 and Makazole Mapmpi was finishing off try after try.
The Bok coaching staff has been a tight unit since Rassie Erasmus and Nienaber took over at the beginning of 2018.
There was a reshuffle of titles when Erasmus stepped back as head coach after the 2019 World Cup to allow Nienaber to take on that position, but in reality not a lot has changed. The two continued working more or less side by side.
Of course, a major question is whether Erasmus will follow Nienaber. You would not think so at this stage. If Erasmus was also leaving, Saturday’s announcement would have said as much.
The smoothest transition for the Boks post this year’s World Cup would be for Erasmus to continue as director of rugby and for one of Davids or Stick to step up to the head coaching role.
I remember when Jake White was departing as head coach following the 2007 World Cup victory, he was adamant that the man to replace him should be his then-assistant, Allister Coetzee. But Coetzee was overlooked for Peter de Villiers only to be given the job in 2016 when he was much less likely to succeed.
If Coetzee had been handed the baton by White in 2008, how differently would it have worked out for him? He had been on the Bok coaching staff for years and would have continued White’s systems but when he was appointed after Heyneke Meyer made way at the end of 2017, Coetzee had no chance.
He took over a Bok team that had to rebuild after the mass departures of Meyer’s literally old brigade and was stymied by not being able to pick overseas-based players. That was something Erasmus immediately overturned when he took over.
There is a lot to be said for consistency in the coaching staffs of national teams, the All Blacks did it brilliantly for years by internally grooming the successor to the head coach.As for Nienaber’s “personal reasons” for leaving, I seriously doubt there is anything nefarious afoot.
He loves Ireland and has always said how much he and his family enjoyed his stint at Munster. A top job at Irish giants Leinster in one of the great cities of the world, Dublin, sounds like an enticing change from the uncertainty of South Africa.
@MikeGreenaway67