Ex-Springbok coach Peter de Villiers returns to rugby
Peter de Villiers, who coached the Springboks to a test series triumph over the British and Irish Lions in 2009, has agreed to coach the country’s national deaf sevens team, including their World Cup challenge in Argentina in 2023..
South African newspaper Rapport, said the controversial De Villiers' appointment was confirmed by Reneen Stenekamp, president of the SA Rugby Association for deaf players.
Stenekamp said: "Peter has been appointed with immediate effect until and including the World Cup tournament for deaf sevens players in Cordoba, Argentina."
De Villiers responded to his new role saying: "During my time as Bok head coach, I firmly believed that rugby had the power to uplift the community and, more importantly, to develop individuals who might not have had the same access to sport like others.
"When the SA Rugby Association for the deaf approached me and explained their reasons for creating two teams for male and female players who will work to play in a World Cup next year, I immediately said I wanted to be involved.
"The chance to add value to a class of rugby that I have never experienced before, to help individuals reach their potential and also to develop future leaders and finishers in South Africa is something that I simply could not pass up.”
De Villiers coached the Springboks from 2008 to 2011, after raising his profile with successes with the South African U19 and U21 squads and became the first-ever non-white to be appointed to the national coaching position. The Springboks won 30 of their 48 matches under De Villiers and he became the first coach since Nelie Smith to have secured a series win over the Lions.
Last year de Villiers was named as the Good Party's mayoral candidate for the Drakenstein local municipality. He has suffered tragedy away from rugby and in 2019 lost his daughter, Odille Monk, after a brave fight against cancer aged just 28 and in early April this year, De Villiers‘ wife’s body was found floating in a swimming pool in Gqeberha having drowned.
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Who got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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