This week I started a series on my blog celebrating the very best Springboks of the last 30 years. The series is called Rewind, but in doing the first one on Rassie Erasmus the player, it got me thinking about our Springbok coaches and just how successful they have been in the professional era.
The World Cup has become the holy grail in the absence of traditional three- or four-Test match series and tours that total a minimum of 12 matches, which pales to the 26 of those past warriors, who before the sport went professional in 1996 would travel from South Africa to New Zealand by boat, take in a month of rugby in Australia and then return home five months later.
I have long argued that, while the World Cup is now the pinnacle for Test teams, supporters want a national team that wins in between World Cups, wins big Test matches, home and away, wins the likes of the British & Irish Lions series and chases a world ranking of being the best.
The margins in a World Cup final are fine. The All Blacks, in 2023, were in disarray and the Boks were on top of their game. The Boks won the final 12-11, with the All Blacks having missed a conversion and penalty, scoring the only try of the final and 20 metres out from the Bok tryline when the end whistle went. And they did this playing 14 on 15 for 50 of the 80 minutes.
This was a final played by a team, the All Blacks, that played its best rugby in four years in the final four weeks of the World Cup.
For me, there is not enough celebrating of achievements outside the World Cup or for returning from the World Cup with a medal that is not gold.
There is so much coaching IP from SA coaches, but like with our former Springbok players, there is never enough celebration of just what they achieved as national coaches.
Olympians don’t refuse to put on a silver or bronze medal because they consider it meaningless. It is an achievement to win silver and bronze.
Nick Mallett won 16 Tests in succession en-route to a Springbok team that equalled the then world record of 17. Carel du Plessis was coach in the first win, a record 61-22 triumph against the Wallabies in Pretoria.
Mallet’s Boks beat the All Blacks in New Zealand, beat them for the bronze medal in Cardiff at the 1999 World Cup and won the Tri Nations. Mallet would win 27 of his 38 Tests with the Boks for a 71% success rate.
Erasmus, in his two stints as head coach, won World Cup gold in 2019 and the Rugby Championship in 2024. He has combined his two stints so far for 27 wins from 38 for a 71% return.
Jacques Nienaber won the British & Irish Lions series in 2021, World Cup gold in 2024 and finished with 25 wins in 37 Tests for 66% — the same as 2007 World Cup winner and Tri Nations winner Jake White, who won 36 from 54 matches.
Heyneke Meyer won 32 from 48, including a 2015 World Cup bronze for a 66% winning ratio, but seven of his defeats came in eight Tests against the best All Blacks. He averaged 78% against all other nations.
Peter de Villiers won a British & Irish Lions series and the Tri Nations and beat the All Blacks three times in succession in 2009, including one in New Zealand that year. He also won against the All Blacks in New Zealand the previous year.
Outside of the Boks, John Dobson is the history-making coach who inspired the first international Stormers title when they won the inaugural United Rugby Championship, and John Plumtree coached the Sharks to the EPCR Challenge Cup last season.
Frans Ludeke and Johan Ackermann have prospered in Japan and Johann van Graan has turned around Bath.
There is so much coaching IP from South African coaches, but like with our former Springbok players, there is never enough celebration of just what they achieved as national coaches.
Let’s change that, get them all in one room and make it one hell of a rugby night.
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