The indaba of coaches that was held in Cape Town over the past few days has successfully mapped out a new direction for rugby to take in this country, but it was just the start of the process, with the next step being disseminating the ideas and decisions to the various provincial presidents and unions.According to acting SA Rugby president Mark Alexander, recommendations were made that would involve structural change to the way the game is run in South Africa, but as this will be discussed at the General Council meeting on 27 November, he did not want to pre-empt anything before the provincial presidents and other administrators were informed.
The provincial officials will be informed of the key principles and recommendations decided on at the indaba by a six-page document that a six-man sub-committee will thrash out within the next 10 days.
With the conditioning coaches now set to meet in December, the indaba was what Springbok coach Allister Coetzee referred to as the beginning of a process, one he felt was a massive step forward in terms of facilitating conversation and making a breakthrough by getting the various parties that make up the South African whole to start collaborating for a common cause.
"For me personally it was ground-breaking. Everyone in South African rugby has been living in their own little kingdoms for many years, and from the point of view of building relations between coaches and CEOs, and agreeing on what needs to be done, a lot of progress was made in these two days," said Coetzee.
"With the intellectual capital we had in the room over the two days, how can we not succeed? For me it was fantastic, particularly seeing so many of the franchise coaches being so open about the game and where it needs to be improved and what problem areas need to be addressed. What we got from the room was that instead of just trying to follow and emulate other countries, we need to build something that embraces something new while also maintaining our strengths."
Coetzee used defence as an example of an area that in the quest for a more dynamic attacking game had started to become neglected, and it has cost the Boks dearly this year. At the same time, there was recognition that South Africa has fallen way behind when it comes to development of core skills that will equip players to make more and better decisions.
Both of those have been recognised as facets that require short-term intervention for the Boks if they are to do well on their forthcoming November tour of the UK and Italy, which is why Cheetahs coach Franco Smith and Lions defence coach JP Ferreira have been seconded to the management.
So is kicking and aerial skills, with the former being looked after on the tour by the return to the squad of Heyneke Meyer's kicking coach Louis Koen, who has been seconded from the national body's rugby department.
"I will have my third defence coach on this tour but it was identified as a need," said Coetzee.
"Defence has been a problem for the whole year, even in the Ireland series. Jacques Nienaber was only doing the job until he left to go overseas, and Chean Roux, who worked with John McFarland in dealing with the referees and law issues as part of the previous Bok management, did it as a stop-gap measure only during the Rugby Championship.
"We need a specialist defence coach and I will decide after the tour whether we carry on with the one that will join us for this tour or go elsewhere. Having Franco is going to be massive as he is very good at coaching skills after working in Italy."
ACTION PLAN
Alexander described the two-day indaba as the best conference he had been involved in during his years as a rugby administrator.
"They were the best two days in my career as a rugby administrator as rugby was the only subject and I thought the coaches got through a lot of ground in establishing a methodology. The tactics of the methodology will always be there, but the building blocks have been put in place," said Alexander.
He added that recommendations were made that would impact on structures, and issues such as the selection of overseas players as well as ways to attract better sponsorship and investment in the game would be tabled for debate at the Council meeting next month.
Sport psychologist Pieter Kruger, who helped facilitate the meeting with Brendan Venter, said he was pleased with the level of openness from the various coaches in the room, something he had felt might have been a problem beforehand.
"The main objective was to get thoughts on the table and to get something down on paper, and that was brilliant. There was a great willingness on the part of all people present to participate and to discuss technical things," said Kruger.
"At end of the day it was about formulating an action plan that is applicable and that will start the process. We will send a short summary of what was discussed, recommended and decided in the next 10 days to each participant.
"I think Brendan should take a lot of credit for the openness and willingness to participate that made this conference such a success. In a very polite but clever way he drew people out and started the debate. I was worried there would be reticence, but once we got the first couple of coaches to start talking it going from there."
Alexander added that the indaba had been solution driven and the proof of the pudding would be seeing the solutions adopted and executed.
"There are some short-term solutions that were arrived at, and the announcement of the changes in the Springbok management team were part of that, but much of it is long-term and it is the start of a process that will take a while to start bearing fruit. We looked at all aspects of the game, and it is important to stress that it isn't just a Springbok issue, but something that permeates all levels."
