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Allister agonises as the SARU makes the ARU look good

1st February, 2018
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Allister Coetzee might not be the right fit for the Boks. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Expert
1st February, 2018
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Breaking up gracefully with the Boks ain’t easy. Jake White took shattered Kamp Staaldraad survivors and won a World Cup, but he was exiled for being too proud.

Nick Mallet won seventeen Tests on the trot, but was fired for suggesting lowering ticket prices could broaden support.

Pieter de Villiers won a Tri-Nations title by beating the All Blacks three times in one season and took the Boks to world number one again, but is now considered lucky to bag the Zimbabwe job.

Heyneke Meyer’s team came within two points of beating one of the best rugby teams in history in a World Cup semi-final, and now he organises high school festivals.

Thus, the latest Bok coach departure drama has historical precedent. But Allister Coetzee has abysmal on-field results to use in his public biff with SARU.

He was the first Bok coach to lose a Test at home to Ireland. His team lost twice to Wales, gave up 57 points to New Zealand twice (once, in Albany, without even registering a point in return), had the worst year in history (2016: eight losses), caught a 3-38 hiding to Ireland even after two years of team-building, and lost to Italy.

Allister Coetzee South Africa Springboks Rugby Union 2016

(AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

If White, Mallet, P-Div, and Meyer were trashed after winning top 1-2 status, why would ‘Toetie’ (or ‘Kootchie Koo’) be treated kindly?

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Coetzee has made a number of arguments as to why he is special; some of them even made in writing in a shocking 19-page missive to his employer.

Toetie does not argue that his 44 per cent win ratio was really just a missed Elton Jantjies drop goal in Perth and a missed Jantjies penalty in Port Elizabeth away from meeting his (surprisingly low) 50 per cent win requirement. That might have been an interesting argument: the old draw-is-not-a-loss theory or “I can’t make the kick; Elton has to” approach.

Presumably, Coetzee’s lawyers avoided any talk of win (or not-loss) ratios because they wish to claim he had no enforceable performance clause. Also, to make his other race-based conspiracy claims, it might have been awkward to cast Jantjies as the brown tool of white racists.

Coetzee instead chooses to argue SARU really wanted a white coach, so they fired Meyer and hired him as a ‘ceremonial’ cover, but set him up to fail by providing fewer massages to players, less psychological therapy, allowing 257 Saffa pros to play overseas, and by giving him less support in general.

His rant, extraordinary even by South African rugby drama standards, effectively ends any chance of any other national body hiring Kootchie Koo as a head coach. But he and his lawyers must believe that ship has already sailed. Thus, his letter is probably only for short-term gain.

A payout, by revealing more proof of what must already be obvious: SARU is the worst administrative group in top tier rugby.

The ARU looks like a smoothly-oiled super-machine compared to SARU. Just take ‘ARU’ and add ‘Silly’ to the front.

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SARU cannot even produce a signed version of the 50 per cent clause (and why was it only 50 per cent?).

Their chief executive allegedly had off-the-record conversations with Coetzee that are now the fuel for Coetzee arguing SARU essentially replaced him with Rassie Erasmus before doing Coetzee’s review.

And at this point, Eddie Jones has prepared more for the June tour than the Boks.

England rugby union coach Eddie Jones

(AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)

Yet, as sloppy as SARU is and was, Coetzee’s excuses for only winning 11 Tests in two years are even sloppier.

He explained 2016 by not having enough time to prepare, but he had the same time as Jones did with England and had better familiarity with his players, after coaching Western Province for seven years.

He used the same excuse in 2017, because he was in limbo, but the Boks were unbeaten after the first six Tests, falling apart in the second half.

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To play the race card now is rich. Coetzee rejected P-Div’s plea to help the Stormers, and Coetzee picked marginal to poor Test-level players like Ruan Dreyer, Andries Coetzee, a series of non-eighthmen, Ross Cronjé, Jesse Kriel (poor at 13 in defence), in place of promising black Super Rugby stars like Lukhanyo Am, Warrick Gelant, Nizaam Carr, and Rudy Paige (not great, but worth a look, as Cronjé slowly crabbed the Bok attack into the doldrums).

He also persisted with the Matador, Raymond Rhule (who missed more tackles than he attempted in Albany) when really good black options at wing abounded.

Coetzee was the sole selector for two years. His game plans were on trial. He failed, dismally,

Now he claims it was all a trap. If so, and it’s a trap which would have required strange race-motivated collusion by Jantjies, Rhule, Tendai Mtawarira, Cortnall Skosan, and Siya Kolisi, we now have a better idea why so many coaches had an easy time trapping Coetzee tactically.

He was promoted two levels above his skill set.

And the soap opera that is Bok coaching succession continues. Same as it ever was.

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