Durban – The ghost-like appearances of Allister Coetzee and Adriaan Strauss at the post-match press conference at Kings Park at the weekend provided a sharp flashback to the Brighton Community Stadium a year ago where Heyneke Meyer and Jean de Villiers resembled the living dead after the defeat to Japan in the opening round of the World Cup.
Coetzee was devastated on Saturday night, disbelieving and short on clear-cut answers as he endured the inquisition into the 15-57 reverse to the All Blacks, a defeat even bigger in margin to the “Jan van Riebeeck” 16-52 defeat to the same team at Loftus Versfeld in 2003.
He looked like a man who knows that it can no longer even be remotely disguised that, as a unit, he and his coaching staff are out of their depth. There is no escaping it. In the Springboks’ last two Rugby Championship matches, both on home soil, the Boks have failed to score a try and conceded 10. They have played despairingly uninspiring rugby and are regressing rather than progressing.
But you had to have sympathy for the coach as he bravely mouthed platitudes such as “embarrassing”; ”two-steps backwards”; “let down our fans” and so on before admitting that the Indaba scheduled for later this month to assist Coetzee, involving the sages in this country (mostly former coaches), “was vitally important”.
This is the same man that said a fortnight ago that he had not sent an SOS to Saru after the horrible defeat in Christchurch and that he had full belief in his backroom staff.
Well the Indaba might well provide Coetzee with constructive hints as to how to prepare the team for the November tour but the reality is that this Indaba will do nothing more than put elastoplasts on gaping wounds.
The stricken Springboks are cut to the bone. The real problem is an anachronistic Saru administration that refuses to advance into the 21st century. The Springboks are a professional rugby team that is administered by rank amateurs.
What if the Indaba recommends that the Saru board sack themselves to be replaced by slick, dynamic professional businessmen who will not tolerate the tardy, antiquated governance delivered by our (mostly) self-serving provincial presidents. Not all of the 14 are in it for themselves, let us be fair, but compared to the 21st Century and Beyond New Zealand model of administration, Saru is currently round about the Boer War.
Let us be frank, Coetzee was appointed by default and so late this year, because Saru could not find anybody else. They chased away Heyneke Meyer after he finished in bronze medal position at the last World Cup.
The Boks lost 20-18 to the All Blacks at Twickenham in 2015. A year later they have lost 57-15 in South Africa. Go figure ...!
So let us deal with what is front of South African rugby right now. The Springbok coaching staff as it stands cannot possibly continue. Either Coetzee must resign, be fired or be granted a strong support staff in the interim while Saru takes a long, hard look at itself and repairs the mortal damage it has done to the game in this country.
In 1997, Carel du du Plessis was fired after the last game of the Tri-Nations and Nick Mallett came in and took the Boks on a 16-game undefeated streak, and the Boks’ winning run of 17 Tests (Carel ironically won his final Test as coach) was equalled in Durban at the weekend by the All Blacks.
Mallett was an ambulance coach that came good, but the circumstances in which he took the job in 1997 are very different to those in South African rugby in 2016.
Primarily, Mallett still had the best players available to play for the Boks playing in South Africa. The rule that only home-based players could be picked for the Boks had not been relaxed.
Would Johan Ackermann be prepared to come in now and take over for the November tour and lay a foundation for 2017?
We live in hope, but you have to think he would be crazy to accept the job unless he could bring in his own support staff and have an understanding that the ruling body would wisen up and make bold changes to ensure that the best player remain gin South Africa.