Why Mallett would probably say no

The drive for Chester Williams to take over as Springbok coach flies in the face of the most fundamental principles that the new South African rugby administration should be following in the appointment of the new national mentor.

For goodness sake, has South African rugby not learned its lesson and come to understand that the most important ingredient for any contender for the Springbok coaching job should be experience, and lots of it.

Ask anyone who has been in the coaching business for longer than five minutes and they will tell you how much you end up learning from your mistakes and how much you grow as a coach the longer you are in the job.

And it should have become bleeding obvious to anyone with more than just a cursory interest in the South African game that lack of coaching experience is one of our biggest problems.

Few of the top provincial and Super 12 coaches have been coaching at a high level for longer than five years, let alone a decade. Some even came to their jobs without any apprenticeship at all.

Those South Africans who have been around the block a few times and thus boast the necessary experience are mostly coaching in the northern hemisphere at the moment.

While Williams may make the grade and prove an inspired choice, to turn to the former pearl of Paarl is a gamble of similar magnitude to the one the decision makers took when they appointed Carel du Plessis six years ago.

No-one can deny that Du Plessis, like Williams, has special qualities. He is an outstanding spotter of talent, his ideas in bringing through the flair of the backs are revolutionary.

But back in 1997 he had not coached at any level higher than the Univesity of the Western Cape, who were in the second league in the Western Province club structure. Appointing him as national coach when he boasted no experience was a massive gamble that backfired and quite possibly proved a setback in Du Plessis' career.

Maybe if it were not for his premature elevation to the hot-seat all those years ago, Du Plessis would be in a more eminent position than the one he currently holds among South African coaches.

Williams has done an outstanding job with the sevens side and yes, on this basis he does boast more experience than Du Plessis did. There is a lot going for Williams and it was no secret that the previous administration were grooming him to take over as Bok coach after the 2007 World Cup.

That plan should remain in place, with Williams' role with the Boks being confined to assistant coach at this stage.

Right now what South African rugby needs is the appointment of someone that has a solid coaching foundation over several years, someone who has been there and done that at the highest level.

The time for taking chances is over, as we saw with the last two coaching appointments.

The Harry Viljoen appointment was particularly diabolical if you consider that he had not coached at any level for almost four years prior to his taking the Bok job.

Hopefully the reports that Williams is favoured by SA rugby's top brass will be the same red herring that a similar report was when Viljoen resigned. It simply doesn't make sense at this stage of South Africa's rugby history to appoint a coach without 15-man experience, which essentially means the board of SA Rugby will be making yet another appointment on a wing and a prayer.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago following the Bok exit from the World Cup, there is only really one South African coach with the background required and that is Nick Mallett (Jake White, Brendan Venter and Heyneke Meyer would be my other choices, but Mallett has coached the Boks and beaten the top teams).

According to the same report that tipped Williams as the next Bok coach, what counts against Mallett is the fact a northern faction don't want him in the job as he will prove a divisive influence.

That is just laughable if you consider that some of these same people were instrumental in the sacking of Mallett, surely the biggest mistake made by SA Rugby in the past three years.

I hear those who say that Mallett had a poor record in his last two years. But in the last two tests before he was sacked he did show signs of having learned from his mistakes, something that Laurie Mains highlighted on a visit to this country during this year's Super 12.

And the Boks under Mallett were never as bad as the current bunch have become since the slide accelerated following Mallett's departure.

Mallett has also gone on to coach Stade Francais to the French club title, no mean feat if you consider how competitive that league is. The ideas he has picked up and things he has learned in the northern hemisphere leagues will hold him in good stead.

Mallett's transformation record was not always great, but judging from some of his recent public pronouncements, he appears to have learned from his mistakes in that sphere too.

And lets not pretend that the quality of the black players who were available to him was anywhere near the league of the players who he would be able to draw on if he took charge now.

But having said of all of this, I cannot see Mallett taking the job. At least he won't if he takes a proper look at some of the points made by new Sarfu president Brian van Rooyen after his election.

In particular there is the one that the next Springbok coach will just be one member of the selection panel, the implication that he will not have the overriding say. As the man who gets sacked when the team does not perform, the coach simply has to be the guy who has the main say in team selection (ask Ian McIntosh what a disaster it is when this right is denied). There is not a self-respecting top coach anywhere in the world who would take the job on the terms outlined in the Van Rooyen manifesto, which appears at first glance to be an over-reaction to the excesses of the Straeuli regime.

Not that the world as a whole will be the target of the new administration when they start the search for the next coach as Van Rooyen has already said he will not consider foreigners.

Until such time as South Africans drop this xenophobic attitude and accept that the coach should be the best available man for the job, which also means he should also not just be the man most likely to kowtow to the whims of the executive and board, then I fear we will remain the second rate rugby nation we are at the moment.