1
Coetzee sees leadership void in search for new Springboks captain
By Tom Webber
Allister Coetzee is still wrestling with who to pick to replace Adriaan Strauss as South Africa captain due to a dearth of experienced candidates.
Strauss announced last September that he would retire from Test rugby at the end of 2016, and Coetzee is yet to appoint a replacement with his own Springboks future uncertain until last week.
Since the World Cup in 2015, South Africa have seen stalwarts like Jean de Villiers, Fourie du Preez and Victor Matfield leave the set up.
Choosing a new skipper is something Coetzee insists he will not rush, stating he will make a decision before a trio of Tests against France in June.
"What has been a big challenge is the lack of senior players and leadership. If you look at the 2015 Rugby World Cup we've lost 650 test caps and five captains. It left a bit of a void," said Coetzee.
"Therefore we are sitting with a young group of Springboks. Eben Etzebeth, Frans Malherbe, Siya Kolisi are all 26 or younger. They may have played a couple of times but in terms of leadership they are still young.
"These are the guys we need to give the opportunity to grow, and we put them in the position to lead a national team.
"If I had to ask you [the media] who your captain would be, we would have a number of candidates.
"There is a process I'm going to follow, and I'll definitely appoint a captain before the first two weeks of preparation."
Coetzee recently ran a three-day training camp with 41 players in Johannesburg, and he is eager to monitor their progress before making his selection for the series against France.
The @Springboks are busy with their last training session before the boys return home in the early afternoon. #LoveRugby pic.twitter.com/4DgaW7PiXs
— South African Rugby (@Springboks) March 7, 2017
He said: "The players arrived in good condition, which shows they have been working hard according to their strength and conditioning programmes.
"There were several new faces that attended a Springbok camp for the first time and the energy and enthusiasm was great to see.
"We will hold two similar camps in the next two months, and that will give us added opportunities to look at more new faces because the Bulls players will for instance not be able to attend the Stellenbosch camp due to their Super Rugby travel commitments."
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Stuart Lancaster 'wants out' of Racing 92 and eyeing Euro giants job
3
Henry Arundell lined up for early England homecoming
4
Steve Borthwick handed fresh injury concern ahead of Six Nations
5
Latest Comments
oh ok, seems strange you didn't put the limit at 7 given you said you thought 8 was too many!
Why did you say "I've told you twice already how I did it but your refuse to listen" when you had clearly not told me that you'd placed a limit of 8 teams per league?
"Agreed with 4 pool of 4 and home and away games?"
I understand the appeal of pools of 4, but 6 pool games might not go down well with the French or the South Africans given already cramped schedules. I do still think that you're right that that would be the best system, but there is going to be a real danger of French and SA sides sending b-teams which could really devalue the competition unless there is a way to incentivise performance, e.g. by allowing teams that do well one year to directly qualify for the next year's competition.
Go to commentsFoster should never have been appointed, and I never liked him as a coach, but the hysteria over his coaching and Sam Cane as a player was grounded in prejudice rather than fact.
The New Zealand Rugby public were blinded by their dislike of Foster to the point of idiocy.
Anything the All Blacks did that was good was attributed to Ryan and Schmidt and Fozzie had nothing to do with it.
Any losses were solely blamed on Foster and Cane.
Foster did develop new talent and kept all the main trophies except the World Cup.
His successor kept the core of his team as well as picking Cane despite him leaving for overseas because he saw the irreplaceable value in him.
Razor will take the ABs to the next level, I have full confidence in that.
He should have been appointed in 2020.
But he wasn’t. And the guy who was has never been treated fairly.
Go to comments