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Springboks legend Naas Botha has a new coaching job and it's for a team you've probably never seen play
By Online Editors
Legendary Springboks first-five Naas Botha has sprung a surprising career move as he takes the reins as head coach of the Indian national men's team.
Rugby India's coup of the 61-year-old is a short-term deal which will see Botha take charge of the side through their upcoming third division Asia Rugby Championship campaign in Indonesia later this month, where they will face the hosts and China in a bid to secure promotion into the second division.
Botha will be joined by an all-South African coaching cast, including former Currie Cup winners Jannie Brooks and Christiaan Buitendach, while sevens specialist Ludwiche van Deventer is included as a backs coach.
The quartet of coaches will also oversee India's high-performance programmes, and Rugby India general manager Nasser Hussain confirmed to ESPN they will help assist with the union's other national sides, including the women's national side.
Former India test star and prominent Bollywood figure Rahul Bose is highly optimistic of the influence Botha and his assistants will have on the squad.
"To have someone like Naas Botha, voted the best rugby player in the world four times, and his team working with us is an extraordinary privilege," Bose told ESPN.
"Naas had been traveling in and out of India for a while now, and we've been in touch with him through the entire period; and like most great rugby players, he's more than willing to serve the sport and share his expertise and knowledge.
"He's majorly doing this for the love of the game.
"Where else will you have a living legend come in unless you offer maybe astronomical fees?"
Currently ranked 81st in the World Rugby rankings, India have just 5795 registered rugby players from a population of more than 1.34 billion.
Botha, whose role with South African broadcaster SuperSport will be unaffected by his appointment in India, played 28 tests for the Springboks between 1980 and 1992, scoring a then-South African record 312 test points.
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Latest Comments
In another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
Go to commentsBens got a crush on KLA. So cute.
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