‘Rugby Netherlands need someone who can deliver 80 hours a week’

It might not have been the Women’s Rugby World Cup qualification she and her players had worked so hard to achieve, but in the end, Sylke Haverkorn’s time as Netherlands head coach was given a fittingly thrilling finale.

Heading into the dying seconds of her final match in charge earlier this month, the Dutch trailed Brazil 15-10 in Amsterdam and looked set to end Haverkorn’s tenure, and a year that promised so much, on a flat note.

But then came the driving maul that splintered tired Brazilian bodies and allowed replacement prop Lynn Koelman to peel away and dot down to level the scores.

The majority of those inside the National Rugby Centre then held their breath as full-back Pleuni Kievit lined up the subsequent conversion, before watching the ball sail through the uprights to confirm a nail-biting 17-15 victory and 2-0 series win.

“It was a dream scenario that we ended with beating another World Cup-qualified team,” Haverkorn tells RugbyPass as she relaxes at home, near Utrecht.

“It was not the best game we played, but it showed our potential.”

Some time after Kievit’s right boot had secured a seventh victory in 10 Tests for the Netherlands in 2024, Haverkorn was being serenaded by her wife, family, friends and former team-mates.

“[Rugby Netherlands] put on a really, really nice goodbye party and my sister, she did a speech,” Haverkorn adds.

“My wife and I, we do co-parenting. We have a seven-month-old son with one of our gay best friends, and both of them are musicians so they prepared a song for me. That was really emotional but really, really nice.”

Can she share any of the lyrics? “It was just about how I am as a coach,” she says, “that I like planning and I’m good with the pen and I make everybody feel good.

“But also, my family was missing me and all that kind of stuff. It was also funny.”

Carving out some more time with her young family was a vital factor in her decision to step away from the national team in the wake of their World Cup disappointment.

Since being named head coach in September 2019, Haverkorn has poured herself into the role, often, by her own calculation, working 80-hour weeks to fit everything in around her day job at Sport Utrecht.

That has become increasingly unsustainable with an infant son to look after. Haverkorn admits finding it tough being away from him for so long, especially during WXV 3 in Dubai.

Her time in the United Arab Emirates was punctuated by a trip home to attend the funeral of her sister’s baby, something that brought her own situation into sharper focus.

“For me personally, a lot happened privately,” Haverkorn says. “I needed to fly back to the funeral, then I came back into the camp again and we had an awesome time. I gave the girls a speech because we also lost a player, the sister of the captain (Inge van der Velden, who died in January 2023).

“I said to the girls, ‘losing and winning something, it’s so, so close, it’s such a thin line but making memories, that’s so important and that gives you friendship for life’.”

Despite an opening 8-8 draw against Samoa in Dubai, earned by Lieve Stallman’s dramatic last-minute charge down of a Cassie Siataga conversion, Dutch hopes of World Cup qualification had evaporated by the time they beat Hong Kong China 33-3 in their final match.

“When I came back, I had the first day with my kid, my work was exploding because I’d missed like 24 days and I was like, ‘How do I keep on doing this?’” Haverkorn continues.

“I also have a dream to become pregnant by myself because my wife did this job. It was too much, and I think Rugby Netherlands, they need to have someone in charge who can deliver 80 hours to keep the standards that we brought in.

“So, that was, for me, the moment when I thought, we didn’t make the World Cup, I did everything that I could, but it also had an impact on my family, on my friends, on everything.

“I need to get a new balance and reload because, for example, I did no sport by myself for almost one and a half years because I didn’t have any spare time.

“Those were the things that kept me thinking like, yeah, it was really, really great but I need to spend time with my family and on myself. Have a little but more self-care to maybe in the future deliver again something like what I did in the last five years.”

Missing out on the World Cup was painful, “it’s a dream that shatters” but what Haverkorn has achieved in the last five years cannot be understated.

Taking a dispirited and disjointed playing group coping with the shuttering of the professional sevens programme and essentially guiding them to within a few minutes of a first World Cup in more than 20 years is no mean feat.

Doing that while laying the foundations for future success is all the more impressive. “I’m really proud,” she admits.

“The legacy stuff and the things we did with the team culture and putting Rugby Netherlands on the map again, I think World Rugby is acknowledging that by giving us more games.

“I hope like Brazil we can go professional one time so the players do not [have to] worry about travel costs or whatever, but they can just do what they love and do the work that they love, which is playing rugby.”

Haverkorn adds: “When I took over, I was appointed head coach of sevens and XVs and three or four weeks later, they said we are not going to do sevens anymore.

“A lot of my squad members said they were going to quit or they were not motivated. It was really, really bad.

“So, it was a hard task to get everybody on the same page again and to let everybody believe and create a team culture that the national team is something to be proud of. It was not an easy job.”

Haverkorn is confident that work will continue under her successor, and former assistant, Gareth Gilbert.

The Netherlands now have under-18 and under-16 teams, as well as a senior women’s academy for older players on the fringes of the national team, and she has faith some of those coming through that pathway could eclipse the squad’s current stars.

“We had some girls in the under-18s who are not eligible to play yet, but they are maybe better than what we have now,” Haverkorn suggests.

“We have incredible, talented players and the future is bright for women's rugby in the Netherlands.”

Bright enough to end the long wait for a first World Cup appearance since 2002?

“The 2029 World Cup, if we keep working like this,” Haverkorn says, “everything is in position.”

Should the Netherlands make it to Australia then don’t be surprised if a familiar face returns to the coaching staff.

“If they’re going to make it, maybe I come back. You never know,” Haverkorn adds with a laugh that betrays the bond that remains between her and the national team.

“That’s what’s so disappointing. I cried because I would love to do this as my job but to do two jobs and raise a child, it’s crazy.”