Bok coach Heyneke Meyer.
NEW Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer says that when it comes to picking a new captain, he will “first pick the team, and then the captain.
The 44-year-old Meyer spoke to Independent Newspapers in an interview following his appointment as successor to Peter de Villiers on a four-year contract.
The SA Rugby Union’s general council was unanimous in their support for Meyer as coach after the executive council had recommended that the former Bulls mentor be chosen to take charge of Springbok rugby
But one of his key decisions in the next few months will be about the captaincy. This comes after De Villiers came under fire for controversially sticking with John Smit as the Bok captain, despite the then-Sharks stalwart having lost form and struggling with his physical conditioning.
Furthermore, his Sharks teammate Bismarck du Plessis produced a number of tremendous displays, yet had to be content with a place on the bench at Test level. Yet De Villiers felt that because Smit’s leadership ability was too important to the team, he could not leave Smit out.
But Meyer says he will do things differently when he decides on his captain and team for his first assignment, the upcoming three-Test series against England in June.
“I first pick the team, and then the captain. The public out there may feel that (the same man) doesn’t always deserve his place. So that is very important to me, that he first earns his place in the team as a player,” said Meyer. “I just think that, if the captain doesn’t deserve his place in the team, then the other players may start doubting him, and doubt the coach’s judgement, and you will never get it back.
“We are really blessed with a lot of strong leaders, and it can be any guy. I’m also a big believer in having four or five leaders in a team. The captain is more the guy who speaks to the media, but it is important to get the right guy who I can be proud of and who the whole country can be proud of.”
Meyer added that he was first looking to appoint a captain on a “short-term basis”, as the skipper has to be in good enough form to warrant a place in the side. Stormers captain Schalk Burger is regarded by many to be the favourite to replace Smit as Bok captain, but Meyer is known to also have a high regard for new Bulls skipper Pierre Spies and also hooker Chiliboy Ralepelle. That is if veteran Victor Matfield doesn’t come out of retirement.
But before Meyer gets down to watching Super Rugby and choosing the best-possible captain, he will first have to sort out his Bok management team. It is understood that Bulls defence coach John McFarland and conditioning expert Basil Carzis are likely to be part of Meyer’s Bok support staff, but that he is still searching for a backline coach. Bulls backline coach Pieter Rossouw could be in the running for a position in the Bok set-up.
Meyer told Independent Newspapers that he would be making use of specialists as he saw fit. But he did mention at a press conference on Friday that he hoped to get the “best people in the world or South Africa” for his management team, so don’t be surprised if Australian Todd Louden is part of the mix.
Louden, of course, was roped in by Meyer as the Bulls backline coach in 2007, and the Bulls went on to become the first SA team to win the Super 14 that year. They also scored the most points (388) in the league season, including that famous 92-3 victory over the Reds at Loftus to secure a home semifinal, and the second-most tries (45, compared to the Crusaders’ 47). Louden is currently the head coach of Sydney University after spending some time in Japanese club rugby.
However, it is unclear whether former Stormers coach Rassie Erasmus will be part of Meyer’s team, as he has been mooted to fulfil the role of high-performance manager at Saru. Saru chief executive Jurie Roux promised the public that the process of appointing the management team “won’t take a month”, although it is known that most of the likely candidates are under contract at other unions.
“We will be in a lot of meetings and a lot of deliberations over the next two weeks to get the right people in their positions,” Roux said. “If one of those candidates is contracted to a union, we will need to engage with the union before we even speak to the person concerned to ensure we do the process in the correct way.”
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