Deans shows foreign is no problem

With the playing strategies of the national team such a talking point at the moment, maybe it is time for me to return to one of my favourite hobby-horses of recent years – the subject of an overseas coach taking charge of the Springboks.

Eddie Jones’ criticisms of the current Bok game-plan, run on virtually every rugby website and in every newspaper in the country, were what prompted the subject. Jones is now with Saracens, but the former Wallaby coach played a big behind the scenes role in the Springboks winning last year’s World Cup.

Several players afterwards spoke in glowing terms of the impact of Jones’ contribution, and some, such as flyhalf Butch James, were transformed players under his influence.

There was a bit of typical South African pettiness towards Jones, and when chaos broke out in some townships earlier this year, it was not the first time xenophobia had reared its head – though Jones being denied the right to wear a Bok blazer does not belong on the same level as the violence that was witnessed then.

This though is a digression, for the real question at issue is whether, when next the SA rugby administrators go in search of a new national coach, they give serious consideration to possible foreign applicants.

That it can be successful was shown by the Jones experience last year, by New Zealander Warren Gatland guiding Wales to the Six Nations title and most emphatically by Robbie Deans’ transformation of the Wallabies side that is on the brink of clinching the 2008 Tri-Nations trophy after several years of drought.

At the highest level a top rugby nation does owe it to its stake-holders to make the very best appointments, the ones that entail the least element of risk.

And when you have won five Super 14 titles and are respected far and wide in the rugby world for what you have done, then you make a strong case for being a relatively risk free candidate for such an important job.

Whether or not South African rugby would have been able to afford Deans is a moot point, but a man of his pedigree should always be a consideration. Had he not already been under contract, Jones would have been a good option too, particularly given the way he so easily fitted in last year.

There are a lot of good young local coaches coming through, but at international level, experience should be a big consideration, and the aforementioned duo have that.

Down in Durban a lot of the people, working around John Plumtree are learning from the experience the Kiwi has picked up working as a coach over several years in New Zealand, South Africa and Europe.

It can only be good for South African rugby, and the considerations which led the Sharks to employ him were not dissimilar to those that have governed the appointment of a succession of foreigners to the Bafana Bafana hot-seat - birth place should play no role in the quest for appointing the best.

Of course we must acknowledge the one big drawback, or at least the one everyone mentions when a foreign coach is discussed – politics.

Would a foreign coach be sensitive to transformation issues? Former All Black coach Laurie Mains, after some initial success as coach of the Lions and the Cats, later ran into problems relating to transformation and the race quotas that were being applied at the time.

But we were told by the government after last year’s World Cup that quotas would no longer be applied, and neither should they be at the highest level (it is a very different argument at the feeder levels).

The appointment of a foreign coach would surely remove one of the main reasons for having quotas – namely the fear that South African coaches might have inherent racial prejudices. With a foreign coach it is unlikely there will ever be a question mark over his ability to see through race in assessing rugby talent.

I am certain that when Jones told us last year that JP Pietersen was a massive prospect, he did not do so because he was using development policies as a reference. He just recognised from the outset what a talent Pietersen is.

Under a foreign coach the racial balance of the team would surely become a non-issue, with everyone from the government to the average supporter being able to trust the coach to deliver on a mandate to run the national team on the accepted international principles of good management in professional sport.