Joey Mongalo may be a name unfamiliar to most, but in 2003 he helped Pretoria Boys beat Affies for the first time in 18 years. Playing at flyhalf, Mongalo scored all 18 of his team’s points that famous day.

He was good enough to play Craven Week for two years and went on to represent SA under-21s.

Mongalo later traded in his playing ambition for coaching and has quietly added to a CV that shows rich promise. As a coach for the Lions he is flourishing: the under-19 Currie Cup title is on show at Ellis Park and a stint as defence expert for the SA under-20s is on his calling card.

Mongalo is one of a significant number of promising coaches making their way along the highways and byways of South African rugby. You just have to know where to look to find them.

It’s an important point because while almost everyone in rugby seems to be fretting about the Springbok coaching position and the succession plan, the conveyor belt is at least belching smoke. More than that, it’s fired up.

There is a formidable group of coaches who may not yet be prepared or sufficiently experienced for the Springbok environment, but who deserve to be drawn closer, acknowledged and encouraged. The pipeline must be smoothened.

The more obvious among the coaches would include John Dobson, Swys de Bruin, Paul Treu, Johan Ackermann and Jonathan Mokuena.

Dobson, the WP coach, applies an esoteric mind to coaching, as you might expect from a man with two Masters degrees and a passion for creative writing. Curiously, The Year of the Gherkin and The Year of the Turnip number among his published works (a line you don’t expect to write every day of a rugby coach).

The former provincial hooker reached the Currie Cup final in his first year in charge of WP and also won a provincial under-21 crown.

De Bruin, the former Sharks man, is highly regarded among his peers and was the chief architect of the Lions’ successful free-wheeling style.

Treu cut his teeth with the SA Sevens team and now has an assistant role at WP. He, too, brings academic rigour to coaching.

We know all about Ackermann who has enjoyed tremendous success while rebuilding the Lions. His name is perpetually thrown into the mix as a candidate for Bok coach, but he’s still a pup and wants to learn more. His time will come.

Mokuena may be the outlier, yet he is moving fast. The former loose forward and Springbok Sevens captain claimed the highly-competitive Varsity Cup title in his first year as a 15s coach (for Pukke) and is now coach of the Leopards. Word out of Potchefstroom is glowing.

Less high-profile candidates would include Kevin Musikanth (formerly of UCT and now at St John’s College in Joburg), Bafana Nhleko (Lions), Derek Heiberg (Rovers, and formerly of False Bay) and Hayden Groepes (Bulls).

Given the difficulties and challenges traditionally associated with appointing Bok coaches, a move should be driven to pull such a group closer to the Springbok set-up. Just imagine them being roped in as official observers during, say, the incoming tour by France in mid-year. Or travelling to Europe at year’s end, where conditions can be arduous.

Taking in the action at the coal face, from attending practices and team talks to fronting up to the media, would surely give them a real feel for the demands of the job.

Separately, imagine the upside of dispatching these coaches on working trips abroad. Someone like Jake White at Montpellier could play a patriarchal role. The teacher in him would revel in coaching the coaches.

Or pop in for a week to chew the fat with Eddie Jones. What an education that would be.

Another option could be to attend former Natal man Murray Mexted’s international rugby academy in Wellington. It’s a hothouse of excellence and would offer insight into some of New Zealand’s secrets and mysteries. The academy has a local offshoot, based in KZN, but international exposure has greater virtues.

If the recent shemozzle has taught us anything, it’s the value of planning. It’s not only players who must be backed, it’s the coaches too. – © Sunday Tribune

 

 

 

 

 

It’s remarkable to track the progress of the Proteas over the past 12 months.

They were in that twilight zone between despair and desperation a year ago. Ranked seventh in the Test rankings, they were the easy-beats of the circuit. The coach, Russell Domingo, looked out of his depth and the players weren’t performing.

We weren’t to know it at the time, but the team needed settling. A raft of world class players had shuffled off and although new faces emerged, they were still new. With that newness came lingering uncertainty and doubt. The World Cup, too, crippled the team. Only in years to come, when time inspires perspective, will we know how damaging that grubby episode was.

But the storms have now passed. The team has found its voice under captain Faf du Plessis, whose happy-go-lucky demeanour disguises a man as ruthless as he is resilient. His fighting instinct has been latched onto by the team.

Others, too, have stepped up, like Kagiso Rabada and Dean Elgar, while Vernon Philander is simply magnificent, the man to go to war with.

None of this has occurred in a cocoon. Domingo identified new talent and encouraged a liberal attitude to the game. He wants his team to play with freedom and daring.

His imperturbable personality has also been key. Even when the pressure was white-hot, he played it cool. He never panicked or strayed from his mission. This is a rare talent for when the team is doubtful and looks inward.

The metamorphosis of the Proteas is instructive as a parallel to the hole the Springboks find themselves in. Surveying the rugby landscape, all the world is in thrall to Eddie Jones’ England and New Zealand continue to be the standard bearers for excellence. Ireland and even Argentina are beginning to flex their muscles.

The Springboks, by comparison, look spent, like the Proteas did a year ago. The international season was shambolic, reaching its nadir against Italy when the team’s failings were exploited by dogged competitors.

This came on top of unexpected recent losses to Japan, Ireland and Wales and a humbling record home defeat to the All Blacks.

The obvious question to ask is whether the decline is terminal. Perhaps the external pressures that attach themselves to the Springboks have become too much to bear. Coach Allister Coetzee has more to worry about than simply his game plan. It’s got to be hellish operating under the burden of a weak currency, political pressure and competing provincial interests.

His job won’t get any easier, but at least he now knows what he’s dealing with. He’ll have learned a whole lot in year one, not least how impossibly difficult the job is. He often looked like a rabbit in the headlights, but is unlikely to make the same mistakes twice. We hope.

He could do worse than seek Domingo out for a quiet beer. He finds himself exactly where his contemporary was a year ago, unloved and on the outer. The Proteas, like the Boks, lacked energy and drive.

Du Plessis’ unlikely appointment to the Proteas’ high table was a master stroke. He got them firing again.

Coetzee also needs to find himself a go-to captain, as Domingo did. Adriaan Strauss opting out last year was a damning statement, but it’s also true that he never looked entirely at ease. He’s a powerful figure, highly regarded in Pretoria especially, but the team never evidently gravitated towards him.

Given the need to energise the team, Coetzee must hand the captaincy to someone with youth and vigour and ability. Handre Pollard is the obvious call, for he is a man to build a team for the 2019 World Cup around. He’s a proven force internationally and he enjoys the respect of his teammates.

And Coetzee must set his stall out early. The Super Rugby coaches have to be brought on board and his planning has to kick in pre-season, unlike last year when he received a late call-up.

Of course the mood around the Boks is sour, but the Proteas have demonstrated the virtues of critical thinking and reinvention. The template is there. The Springboks must grasp it.

It’s time for that beer. – © Sunday Tribune

 

 

 

Given South Africans’ penchant for hash tags, grumbling and indignation, there ought to be a competition to guess the first issue to outrage rugby fans in the new season.

The retention of struggling Allister Coetzee, perhaps? The continued riddle of Super Rugby? Or maybe Johan Goosen turning up in Cheetahs colours?

How about the good old tackle, the staple that is as old as the game itself? While you’ve been at the beach or tucking into that festive roast, the lawmakers were tinkering. They’re always doing that in the game, but with concussion such a big issue in sport and a premium on player welfare, the smart guys at World Rugby had to do something.

So what they’ve done is redefined illegal tackle categories and introduced tougher sanctions for reckless and accidental contact with the head. The bottom line is that the head is a no-go area and anyone stupid enough to target it will have the book thrown at them.

We’re lucky in that the southern hemisphere season is yet to begin, but the new edict was issued on January 3, in the middle of the northern hemisphere season. They’ve had to wisen up quickly.

Super Rugby teams will doubtless have top refs in during pre-season advising them on the new guidelines.

The players will be watched like hawks. Big Brother will be eyeing the refs and the refs will be scrutinising the players more than ever. If you think red and yellow cards are popular currency now, just wait for the start of Super Rugby.

As ever with such things, there will be unintended consequences. Ball carriers will be tempted to duck lower into tackles, milking the possibility of a penalty. What about the player diving over the line being stopped by a “high” tackle? Defending your line close-in becomes Hobson’s Choice: tackle high to stop the grounding and you’ll be penalised; tackle low and you’ll concede a try.

This is what happened on weekend one in the Ulster-Scarlets Pro 12 game where Ulster’s Sean Reidy was sent off for a high tackle as he stopped scrumhalf Aled Davies from crossing the tryline. The ref issued a card and awarded a penalty try. It looked absurd.

The onus is on the tackler in every instance when the ball carrier should also bear responsibility for safety.

Indeed, if you aim lower as the tackler and the runner is leading with an elbow, knee or hip, the tackler is in danger of getting his brains scrambled too.

Given how many defenders start out the tackle across the chest and end up with their arms around the head area, a not unnatural event given the impact and nature of the tackle, the very art of defence could be redefined. If players know they won’t be interfered with around the upper body, the offload could become a potent weapon used more and more.

The attacking game could yet become fashionable again with fewer players wrapped up in higher tackles. Arms and hands will be freed and perhaps staid game plans too. We might see a game that becomes even faster.

Defences are going to have to sort themselves out. They will have to be technically spot-on, with little margin for error. Any teams that are sloppy about their targets when defending, who don’t hit accurately, could quickly find themselves with just 12 or 13 players.

The new-fangled laws will likely see more players crowd the tackle area, potentially freeing up other areas of the game to attack. Changing times indeed.

The rucking game will also metamorphose. The neck-holds and twisting around the head area in rucks and mauls are so common as to seem irrelevant. These are effective tactics, yet the new diktat of zero tolerance will put an end to the practice. Players will have to find another way to shift the opposition, who often bend down over the ball and plant their feet as the first man at the breakdown.

Fair contest for the ball, one of rugby’s central tenets, thus becomes anathema.

Whatever happens, the first few weeks of the new season are bound to be fascinating (and frustrating). Watersheds often are. – © Sunday Tribune