Michael Cheika, the rugby coach, is a thoroughly unlikeable guy. He’s stroppy, confrontational and grumpy. Plus he’s Australian.

He’s also a refreshingly honest and authentic rugby bloke, as good an antidote as any to the banal world of press conferences and coach speak. Professional sport has much to answer for, and deadening public interaction is just one such consequence.

Most media conferences and post-match interviews are predictable, cliché-driven affairs, but Cheika is guaranteed to lob a couple of hand grenades when he holds court. Not for him the routine or expected. He wears his heart on his sleeve and must drive his media manager nuts when he veers off-message, which is most days.

Last weekend he was in trouble for appearing to mouth the words “fucking genius” when Michael Hooper’s try was disallowed against England, apparently referring to referee Ben O’Keeffe whose officiating was exotic, to put it mildly.

He later got into a strop with a television reporter who asked him about the incident.

World Rugby was none too pleased, although their ire was directed at Cheika’s suggestion that the referee wasn’t on the level rather than the language that turned the air blue when the TV cameras were on him.

The week before it was Eddie Jones’ turn. He lost his cool, also in the stands, and rhetorically asked, “How fucking stupid are we?”

Jones sheepishly apologised, although it was a fair question given how ordinary England were against Argentina.

There are two critical points that instantly come to mind. The first is that it’s refreshing to see a coach obviously care this much about his team’s performance. He fumes, he vents, he blows up. Bravo!

The second is that the sanctity of the coaching box is routinely invaded by the all-seeing eye of television. Like the corner of a boxing ring, where the language spoken by trainers to their boxers is often ribald and downright filthy, the coaching box is their “office”. Industrial language is often standard. If a coach can’t mouth the words to vent his frustration, what’s he to do?

Heyneke Meyer’s histrionics in the coaches’ box were legendary, clearly demonstrating how he endlessly had his heart in his mouth. He wasn’t one for cursing, but you were left in no doubt of his feelings.

Allister Coetzee’s style is merely to thump the table, which is encouraging. I far prefer that to the inscrutable style of Gregor Townsend or Steve Hansen. Their poker faces are world class. But who wants a coach with a poker face?

The last great entertainer in media conferences was Peter de Villiers. The nonsensical stream of consciousness with which he burst forth was remarkable, more so that he could do it week after week. He was also brutally honest, which made a change from the prevailing standard which is mainly safe and sanitised. Divvy had a thoroughly well-developed sense of humour, never a bad thing.

Most media conferences are deathly dull for numerous reasons. The questions are lame, or the coach offers up drivel that is happily accepted. He isn’t challenged or forced to come up with a creative answer. The main reason, though, is they’re coached – or “encouraged” – by the higher-ups not to rock the boat. Which is why you get pearlers like “full credit to the opposition” or “there are no easy games in this competition”.

Almost without exception, coaches would prefer not to front up. Root canal would be a more favoured option. They get little out of it and do it only because they must.

It’s little wonder one of the titans of the British sports writing industry once opined that the readers of his Sunday paper didn’t care what the coach had to say. “They buy it to read what I have to say,” he declared with no false modesty.

Don’t expect any of this to change any time soon. Teams and unions are wedded to the tradition and with elite athletes and coaches becoming increasingly disconnected from supporters, it’s one of the few hotlines that reporters have.

Just don’t hold out too much hope for any juicy morsels. Coaches like Jones and Cheika are outliers in an environment that adores shlock and political correctness.

Too damn bad. – © Sunday Tribune

 

 

 

 

There was a moment during one of his press conferences last week when Allister Coetzee’s responses drifted out of his mouth like an incoherent babble.

It was an excruciating, difficult scene to watch. At that very moment you could feel the job, the very enormity of it, slipping away from the Springbok coach. I have no idea whether he will survive the latest fallout after yet another wretched team display, against Ireland, but you sense that a tipping point has been reached.

There have been howls of outrage in past months, but nothing like recent days where even people you’d normally expect to have his back turned theirs on him.

Rassie Erasmus is now being positioned as an overlord of sorts and his immediate duty will be to settle things down. It won’t be easy.

The Springbok job is a mighty one. It pays well, ensures special status and remains coveted by elite coaching aspirants. But it can also be a miserable, lonely experience as Coetzee is no doubt discovering.

Paris is a wonderful city, but he won’t have enjoyed much of it. He would have heard and seen the angry missives from South Africa. The biting headlines would have been relayed to him and he will be aware of the savage attacks on social media and the memes that fly around to add a layer of gallows humour to our collective despair.

It was ever thus with Springbok coaches. The job has a remarkable capacity for wearing down its protagonists. Even powerful, feisty men like Jake White and Nick Mallett had their backs bent under the enormous strain of the job. All our recent coaches could do a formidable coaching job, but what good is that when so little of it is truly hands-on coaching. Increasingly it’s like juggling mercury. It’s a job of management, of appeasement, of compromise, of concession.

England’s Eddie Jones talks of “chaos theory”, the idea of introducing chaos into training sessions and other environments to force his team out of their comfort zone. It’s a novel concept, although it would never work for the Springboks.

There is no comfort zone for South Africa’s best. Chaos is a constant accompaniment, seldom of their own doing but because of their environment. Top players are constantly packing up and heading overseas. Injuries are a recurring curse. Issues of transformation rage. We don’t have a coherent playing style.

There’s little doubt that the pressure eventually gets to all Springbok coaches. They age twice as fast in the job. Once they’re over the thrill of being appointed, reality sets in and enthusiasm levels drop. It’s a fiendishly difficult job made harder by an unforgiving fan base and a long, heavy history of excellence.

The Boks are constantly measured against their forebears, men who carved out great chunks of history, but it’s really a zero-sum game. No-one wins.

It doesn’t help that results also produce extraordinarily contrasting emotions from fans, who know little of the art of perspective. We vent and rage after the Boks get thrashed 57-0, yet are encouraged to the point of celebration by a one-point defeat to the same opponents a few weeks later. Perhaps it’s what desperation does to people.

If Coetzee does get nudged, the requirements for his replacement will be the usual. His two key performance indicators will be success on the field and transformation. Linked to winning is the need to be a consistent selector and an understanding of how the Boks play.

The moment last week’s team was announced you knew the odds were long on the Boks getting a favourable result. Tactics change from game to game, as they must, but the broad template shouldn’t. In Coetzee’s past two years the Boks have been caught between two stools, one of stricture and structure and another of instinct and free thinking. Both styles have their virtues, but no team can flick-flack from one week to the next.

These are difficult times; times made worse by the shameful group of men who ganged up on SA’s World Cup bid this week. We needed the Cup to give us back our drive and focus. We needed the Cup to make us feel worthy.

Now our Springboks must, somehow. – © Sunday Tribune

 

Like any decent cat fight, the claws have been out and blood has been spilled.

Any illusions about rugby’s superiority or supposed brotherhood have been shot to pieces by events surrounding the imminent announcement of the host country for the 2023 World Cup.

What was expected to be a reasonably seamless process has been overtaken by spite and envy with both Ireland and France, South Africa’s rivals for the nod, opting to fight dirty.

I was naïve to believe that rugby wouldn’t go the route of soccer or the Olympics, with their tawdry history around voting for hosting rights, and ought to have known better. When money and egos are involved, the fight becomes ugly.

Neither France nor Ireland meekly accepted the recommendations of the independent body that put South Africa in the driving seat. You can understand them being devastated at being pushed to the back of the queue, but the bad-mouthing and near-hysteria is almost unprecedented in rugby. Where there were differences in the past, these were quietly settled. Open warfare isn’t rugby’s way.

Ireland and France were dished up some uncomfortable truths and it hurt them.

Ireland have been particularly cantankerous in their response, firing off an angry letter to World Rugby, and hinting at legal action. Rather than look inward at their own failings, they opted to attack South Africa. It’s a move unlikely to play well.

So too cranky French rugby president Bernard Laporte’s damnation of the recommendation as “nonsense” and “lies”.

South Africa’s response has been dignified silence. Just as it ought to be.

On Wednesday, we’ll have our answer in London and while expectations are that the 39-person World Rugby council will rubber-stamp the recommendation, you can bet that horse-trading and double-dealing will continue up to the last. It’s a secret ballot, so while one union might say one thing, it can quite easily do another.

The warning is thus writ large: don’t pop the champagne just yet.

Predictably, safety and security have been at the heart of the barbs about South Africa’s ability to host the tournament, although few have mentioned that France was under a state of emergency until just last week. Thankfully, while SA has disturbing levels of crime, terrorism isn’t something we must deal with.

Crime levels are horrendous, but as the 2010 World Cup demonstrated, this wasn’t a critical factor in pulling off an outstanding tournament. Policing becomes more visible, mobile courts are set up and even the crooks seem to revel in the atmosphere that a World Cup engenders. Crime already has too many victims – hosting a World Cup shouldn’t be another.

If landing a World Cup can help jack up the criminal justice system, making safety imperative, almost that alone would make doing so worth it.

We also need foreign investment and job creation, particularly in a country where the disparity between rich and poor is so vast.

Winning the vote will do many good things.

It will concentrate administrators’ minds.

It will ensure the Springboks are given everything they require to have a crack at winning a home World Cup. Some players may even opt to stick around for the chance.

It will create jobs.

It will help boost a tired, flat economy.

It will force the hand of complacent police.

It will help lift the bleak national mood.

It will finally help justify having so many (expensive) world-class stadiums.

It will get us back into the habit of attending live sport.

It may even convince local stadium operators to wake up to the reality of the 21^st century where wi-fi is ubiquitous in major international arenas and fans need more than a sad boerie roll to satisfy their hunger.

South Africa requires a minimum of 20 votes on Wednesday. It will be a nervous wait before the announcement is made.

The final mad scramble by our rivals might have a bearing on how the men in suits cast their ballots, but it would be highly disturbing if the voting nations, which exclude the three bidders, went against the “clear leader” recommendation.

It would instantly plunge world rugby into crisis and we’d be back in that position so beloved of South Africans – playing politics. With a nasty edge. – © Sunday Tribune

The Springboks used to arrive in Europe like marauding Vikings, slaying all in their wake.

But that was then.

Recent years haven’t been kind and they’ve dropped, in performance, in the minds of the public and in the rankings. Last year was calamitous – they lost every game on tour – and this season was punctuated by the 57-0 horror show against New Zealand.

If not quite out on their feet, they will arrive in Dublin tired but resolute. There’s massive pressure on them to make right the failures of last year and to start demonstrating the sort of consistency elite teams ought to possess.

Ireland have come of age in recent years, fearing no-one and producing favourable results, especially under Joe Schmidt, the grizzled New Zealander with a new-age box of tricks. If there’s a warning to the Boks, it must come in acknowledgement of the 10 British and Irish Lions players in the Ireland squad. This lot can mix it with anyone.

The Boks are a work in progress, neither here nor there in terms of selection and execution. The past year was a muddle of tactics, tight one match, loose the next. The pack allows us to be expectant, not least thanks to the emergence of brutish tighthead Wilco Louw, but that same excitement doesn’t extend to the backs.

The Boks have weaknesses at halfback, the centres lack balance and there’s a worrying look about the lightweight back three, although this might ease if Warrick Gelant is given the job of fullback.

Ranked fourth, Ireland are one spot higher than the Boks, which seems right. The Boks beat them in a home series last year, but the Irish did win a first-ever Test in SA and even claimed the mighty scalp of the All Blacks, something that has eluded the Boks in recent years.

Dublin, though, won’t hold any unreasonable fears for the Boks. Since readmission, they’ve played there eight times with honours even at four wins apiece.

This ought to be the toughest match of the tour with France, Italy and Wales to come. France are in a traditional pickle, unsure of their best starting 15 and, as ever, likely to fluctuate between glorious and grisly. If the mood takes them, they’ll be a handful, but it’s been years since they threw a spanner in the works of a major team. Now, they rely more on reputation than reality.

Having white-washed France a few months ago, the Boks will look to ram home the advantage in what is expected to be a chilly Paris night.

Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, so while Italy will be touted as dangerous, reality is much different. To quote the late Colin Meads: “The team dietician reckoned pasta was the best thing to have. Ha! If that was true the Italians would be world champs but they’re bloody useless.”

The Boks were a shemozzle last year and had their noses bloodied in Florence. Curiously, Brendan Venter sat in Italy’s coaching box that night, something he never felt entirely comfortable about. While he remains a consultant to the Azzurri, he’ll be in a green and gold blazer this time.

Weary Springbok bodies will then head to Cardiff for the season-ender. The temptation to ease off will be there, but that would be fatal.

Warren Gatland is back in harness in the Wales job, having abandoned the famous “Warrenball” approach, the one-dimensional game plan of crash-balling with big runners in narrow channels to free up space.

He showed a more creative approach with the Lions in New Zealand and every indication is that he’ll try the same with Wales. Big Jamie Roberts has been kicked to touch with more ball players available, allowing Gatland to be ambitious on attack. He’ll be helped, too, by South Africa’s lack of bulk among the backs.

It’s difficult to get a form line on Wales, but we’ll know soon enough – they play Australia next weekend.

The tour will be a mess if the upward trajectory is stalled. Old values and a relentless attitude must return. The Boks must mend the damage wrought by last year’s failures, not least because international rugby cannot afford to see a powerhouse like South Africa fall off the cliff. – © Sunday Tribune