Ken Borland

Enoch Nkwe resigned this week as the Proteas assistant coach and one can only have sympathy for one of this country’s best young coaches in terms of how his experiences with the national team have gone.

It all started in August 2019 when he had to go as Interim Team Director to India, replacing the axed Ottis Gibson after South Africa came an awful cropper in the World Cup in England that year. Nkwe had a new-look team with several of their stalwarts of previous years being absent, taking on superpowers India on their home turf and at their best.

The Proteas did very well to draw the T20 series after one match was washed out, but the Tests were a disaster as South Africa were destroyed by margins of 203 runs, an innings and 137 runs and an innings and 202 runs. It was the first time since losing to Australia in 1935/36 that South Africa had lost consecutive matches by an innings.

None of which should have been held against Nkwe. He came in at short notice, and with the experience of just one franchise season of coaching – albeit a hugely successful one with three trophies being won by the Highveld Lions/Jozi Stars – behind him. And the team was in such a state of transition and a poor mental space that even the best coach in the world would probably not have done much better. It was akin to a suicide mission and this columnist expressed his concerns at the time.

In December that year, Graeme Smith was appointed director of cricket and one of his most urgent tasks was to assemble a coaching team to take on another superpower, England, whose tour was by then just two weeks away. In Cricket South Africa’s review of the disastrous last year, it emerged that the players felt the need to have a coach with greater international playing experience, given how much wisdom had been lost in their ranks after the retirements of Hashim Amla, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers.

And so the decision was made to appoint Mark Boucher, one of the Proteas’ greatest players and a coach who had won five trophies in the last three seasons with the Titans.

Nkwe was named assistant coach, which was viewed as a demotion in some quarters. So in order for this new arrangement to work it was clear that Boucher and Nkwe would have to co-operate when it came to the strategy and management of the team.

I personally had discussions with Smith about how important it was for Nkwe to not be the usual sort of assistant coach – more involved in throwing balls and running drills than helping direct the actual tactical and technical decisions made for the national team. For the sake of transformation, he had to be empowered. By nature, Nkwe is not an assistant coach, he is a head coach, that is his stature and he showed his capabilities while at the Wanderers.

By saying in his resignation statement to the CSA Board that he was dissatisfied with “the functioning and culture” of the Proteas team environment, it is clear that Boucher has failed in his responsibility to fully utilise the 38-year-old Nkwe’s talents. And so one can hardly blame Nkwe for going his own way, especially with the whole atmosphere around South African cricket being so uncivil at the moment.

It will be a huge loss to South African cricket if Nkwe is chased away from our game. He already has many international contacts through his coaching in the Netherlands and let us hope he returns to our fold soon rather than popping up in the coaching team of some other international outfit.

In this regard, South African cricket could once again have taken a leaf out of the Springboks’ books. Backline coach Mzwandile Stick was a target of awful, unwarranted abuse when he was on Allister Coetzee’s coaching staff, but he is now clearly a rising star. And that’s because he has been properly empowered and backed by Rassie Erasmus.

Stick gives press conferences every couple of weeks when the Springboks are in camp, allowing him to showcase his knowledge and passion for the team. By my reckoning, Nkwe has only been put forward by the Proteas twice this year.

Sharks coach Sean Everitt had a little dig on Thursday at Argentina lock Marcos Kremer for his role in the injury of scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse, that led to the call-up of team-mate Grant Williams to the Springbok squad, but fortunately the franchise do have great depth at halfback as the Currie Cup enters its final stages.

Hendrikse was tackled after he had kicked the ball by the replacement lock in the second Rugby Championship Test last weekend, and landed awkwardly, fracturing his ankle. The incident was referred to the TMO, with referee Karl Dickson and the other officials agreeing that Kremer was committed to the tackle and it was not late.

Everitt was annoyed by the tackle though, but at least could take some solace in still being able to name 2021 Springbok squad member Sanele Nohamba and 2018 Springbok tourist Cameron Wright for their Currie Cup match against Western Province in Durban on Saturday.

“I was really disappointed in the way the injury happened to Jaden. I thought it was a cheap shot,” Everitt said. “But it is pleasing to see Grant get recognition after all his months and years of hard work and resilience. He has worked incredibly hard and came through the club system [College Rovers] in Durban.

“Sanele has been with the Springboks as well and has played really well for us in his last two games, while Cameron was really good against the Cheetahs when he started. We are really blessed with our depth at scrumhalf, they have all bought into rotation and the ranking order sometimes changes, which certainly motivates everyone to work hard,” Everitt said on Thursday.

The Sharks are coming off an impressive 56-14 demolition of the Lions at Ellis Park last weekend. Although it all worked out more than okay in the end, some mediocre set-piece work at the start of the match saw them struggle in the opening quarter. Former Western Province lock Gerbrandt Grobler, who debuted for the Sharks last weekend and looked good to go for the rest of the year, is the only member of the tight five who retains their starting position for Saturday.

“We’ve rotated the front row, we’ve not really had much consistency in that department and we know Western Province have a formidable front row so we will try to negate that strength. Emile van Heerden is still working through the concussion return-to-play protocols and it’s great to have Le Roux Roets back after he had played so well.

“Gerbrandt gets the opportunity for more game-time and we would like him to really hit his straps in the coming weeks. He had not played for quite a long time since returning from France, but that cover-tackle he made on Wandisile Simelane on the Highveld at 2pm will live long in the memory. He’s an experienced campaigner and clearly a competitor. He’s made a great mark with us already,” Everitt said.

Sharks team: Curwin Bosch, Yaw Penxe, Werner Kok, Murray Koster, Thaakir Abrahams, Lionel Cronje, Sanele Nohamba, Phepsi Buthelezi (c), Henco Venter, James Venter, Gerbrandt Grobler, Le Roux Roets, Khutha Mchunu, Kerron van Vuuren, Ntuthuko Mchunu. Bench – Dan Jooste, Khwezi Mona, Lourens Adriaanse, Reniel Hugo, Thembelani Bholi, Cameron Wright, Marius Louw, Anthony Volmink.

One thing that has become clear in this year’s Carling Currie Cup is that the ‘smaller’ unions, those not playing in Europe, cannot be taken for granted and the belief and hunger now flowing through the veins of the Griquas and Pumas players is going to make them hard to stop in the last three weeks of competition.

Griquas are third on the log and the Pumas fourth, with just the Sharks and Bulls ahead of them. At least one of them is going to make the semi-finals as they play each other in Kimberley on Saturday, but they will both go through if Western Province fail to beat the Sharks in Durban.

For the Pumas, the success of their season has been based on the realisation that they cannot just rely on their forwards to grind opponents down and they have produced some fine attacking rugby with ball-in-hand too.

“Our forwards were our go-to and they are still one of our strong points. But we said that we must play balanced rugby, we can’t just rely on our forwards for 80 minutes. The engine must rest a bit as well! So we have spread the workload, we are also using the kicking game more and overall we are just playing with more ball.

“When we played in SuperRugby Unlocked last year we got exposed to playing against the very best guys, Springboks included. We saw that we can beat them, but we just needed to rectify the small mistakes that were costing us. We spent two months focusing on that in pre-season and now we are starting to really get belief that we can beat the big unions,” ever-dangerous Pumas fullback Devon Williams told The Citizen on Wednesday.

Griquas wing Daniel Kasande also said there was a link between last year’s experiences and all the narrow defeats they suffered and their strong showing in this year’s Currie Cup.

“Not much has changed in terms of our system and structure from last year, but we had a lot of narrow losses then, things would just not go for us at the end of matcheis. So since then we have been fine-tuning our play and getting in sync with each other. Being together now for two seasons, you can see the chemistry in how we play.

“Before, every time we went into a competition we were the new boys and you get a bit of cold feet. But once you are in with the big boys for a while, you grow in confidence. You start to feel that you can dominate and it was very special beating Western Province at Newlands, once you do that sort of thing once, you believe you can do it again and again,” Kasande told The Citizen.

The way Griquas and the Pumas have contributed to the competition, one hopes many of their players are voted into the team for the newly-created Carling Champions Match – an all-star Currie Cup team chosen by the public – on November 6.

One will not often find a young head coach who would not feel threatened by bringing in assistants who are more experienced or better-known than himself, but it speaks volumes for the confidence and character of Central Gauteng Lions mentor Wandile Gwavu that he has fully embraced having JP Duminy and Piet Botha as his batting and bowling coaches.

Duminy played 46 Tests, 199 ODIs and 81 T20s for South Africa, so he has a wealth of knowledge to offer the Lions batsmen, while Botha is vastly experienced in his own right as a coach and is highly-rated when it comes to helping the bowlers. Gwavu said it is not just the players who will be learning from his assistants.

“It’s a superstar coaching staff with JP, Piet and Prasanna Agoram as our analyst. It’s not only going to be great for the players but also for the growth of the head coach, I’m keen to take the learnings on and it will make me better as well. I know I lack international playing experience and the way JP speaks about cricket, I know we totally share the same philosophies.

“I’ve played under Piet Botha, we have a very strong relationship and I rate him as one of the best bowling coaches around. He’s very good with youngsters and Sisanda Magala, Lutho Sipamla and Anrich Nortje have all come through under his watch. And Prasanna is one of the best, if not the best, analysts, so we have world-class people in our camp,” the 34-year-old Gwavu said on Tuesday.

That the Lions have secured the services of Duminy, one of the Western Cape’s favourite sons, is due to the initiative of CEO Jono Leaf-Wright. The team will certainly benefit from one of the deepest thinkers in the game.

“It was an opportunity I didn’t really think of until I had a conversation with Jono during an ODI I was commentating on against Pakistan here. And then when I heard him speak at a coach’s forum I knew I was in,  you can just sense the trust and integrity. I certainly believe I can contribute. It’s mostly about having conversations about game-plans and driving certain mindsets.

“It’s about talking through their processes with the players, but it’s also about the coaches in Gauteng and telling them what happens at the top level. I don’t have all the answers, but hopefully I can ask good questions and it’s about empowering, encouraging and uplifting the batsmen. It all starts with mindset and trying to throw the first punch. It will be a learning experience for me too,” Duminy said at the Wanderers on Tuesday.