No serious pretenders to coaching job

Peter de Villiers must have felt relieved when he appeared on a SuperSport show last week with the president of the South African Rugby Union, Oregan Hoskins, with exactly one year to go before the Rugby World Cup in 2011. He defied the critics calling for his head by insisting that the World Champions have the right game plan for the World Cup  in New Zealand  next  year.

"We have a very good game plan with which we fared so well last year. Maybe we believed this year that it (success) would just fall into our laps and we didn't focus on actually doing the job. Our focus maybe went to the World Cup too soon and then you lose focus on the job at hand. But we have learned valuable lessons,” he told Reuters and SuperSport.

September 28 will be D-day for De Villiers. He is under intense scrutiny after the Boks lost five of their six Tri-Nations matches in 2010, conceding a record 22 tries. The South African Rugby Unon has promised a very serious review.

James Stoffberg, the head of the technical committee of SARU, told Rapport: “If you are not properly monitored, you won’t know where your mistakes are. Rugby is a team sport and you cannot blame one single person for a loss.

“We must put a pro-active plan in place for what is needed for the end-of-the-year tour and for next year’s World Cup. It makes little sense to wait until January for your World Cup planning to commence,”  he said.

Pretenders with problems

According to SuperSport, the candidates to take over from De Villiers if he is sacked have their own problems.

Jake White, World Cup winning coach of the 2007 Bok team, said: "At a World Cup you need someone who has been a head coach at international level for a while. I am prepared to do that job and take it on a temporary basis. I have experience of what is required, I know the players because two-thirds of the guys who make up the core group were players I coached up until the last World Cup.”

As the Springboks will play just eight tests before the World Cup, SARU are unlikely to axe De Villiers unless they are able to unearth a candidate who is guaranteed to make more out of the considerable talent still present in the South African team, claimed SuperSport.

Allister Coetzee, coach of the Stormers and Western Province, has supported the retention of De Villiers. But Coetzee was also the man who denied De Villiers the service of the defensive coach, Jacques Nienaber, when De Villiers asked that he be made available to the Boks.

Heyneke Meyer, director of coaching at the Blue Bulls, reacted with disdain and bitterness after De Villiers was appointed as White’s successor when Meyer emerged as the clear early favourite.

White is not very popular in the boardroom of SA Rugby because of remarks made in his autobiography, In Black and White.

More questions than answers

Yet what must be a massive concern to fans and the evaluation committee is the lack of coherent answers  by De Villiers to disturbing questions.

The excuse given by De Villiers that they started focusing on the World Cup too early and  were complacent should raise more questions about the lack of professionalism in the South African camp.

Many observers have asked why the South African coaches were technically so naïve and why they failed to adapt to the new rules at the breakdowns.

They have also been dumbfounded by the poor substitutions made by De Villiers as well as  his disregard of criticism by sport scientists that there was a lack of rehabilitation, rest and recuperation for the premier South African players during and after the Super 14 campaign.

De Villiers made a cardinal error on the eve of the first test in Auckland by claiming that the All Blacks fielded a team with similar commitment to the Boks but with inferior talent.

Instead of leaving nothing to chance in fine-tuning the Springboks physically and mentally and ensuring that they have a Plan A, B and C in place, he exuded an air of arrogance and complacency.

The selections by the All Blacks as well their work in the off-season to improve themselves 10 to 20%  paid off handsomely, and it was thanks to their remarkable professional work-ethic that they Black-washed the other teams in the Tri-Nations tournament.

It was the 10th Tri-Nations trophy won by the All Blacks in the past 15 years.

De Villiers might make another cardinal error if he does not prepare well to provide the technical committee with a comprehensive and convincing plan of action to improve the Boks within the next 12 months.

Failure to do this could result in the motor-mouth De Villiers being sacked.  There are only eight tests left before the World Cup and this may not be enough to save his international career.

For his own sake  and that of the players he needs to prepare well, or face the chop.