Ken Borland

The 15th week of 2016 could potentially be a seismic one in the history of Black African rugby in this country with Jonathan Mokuena leading Pukke to the Varsity Cup title and Mzwandile Stick being named a Springbok assistant coach.

While both former Springbok Sevens stars have quickly risen to coaching prominence, it is Mokuena who is perhaps accelerating even faster than former flyer Stick.

The 34-year-old Mokuena claimed the highly-competitive Varsity Cup title in his first year as a 15s coach and will now be guiding the Leopards in the Currie Cup as the doors slowly open for Black Africans at senior coaching level.

Speed and intensity will always be vital in rugby and, as a former Springbok Sevens captain, Mokuena’s coaching focuses on that.

“Coming from Sevens has been kind of an advantage because there’s a certain work ethic in Sevens. Coming to 15s, I try to train and operate at that same level, to introduce the same mental attitude. We train at a greater intensity and pace and under more pressure. In Sevens, because there are less guys on the field, one missed tackle can mean you lose the game,” Mokuena told The Saturday Citizen.

Mokuena was born in Cape Town in 1981 and received a bursary while at Prince George Primary to attend Voortrekker High School, an Afrikaans school.

“There was no soccer or volleyball, which I had been playing, at Voortrekker, I had to play cricket and rugby. It was just post-1994, so it was a bit uncomfortable, but I think having that challenge has allowed me to fit in well in small towns. I played my best rugby in Potchefstroom and Kimberley,” Mokuena said.

Having made his provincial debut for Western Province in 2002, Mokuena, a tough loose forward, relocated to Potchefstroom in 2004, playing 55 matches for the Leopards. From there he had stints with the Cheetahs and Griffons in the Free State, before joining Griquas, who he captained to the Vodacom Cup title in 2009, being named the player of the tournament.

He then joined the Lions, in the years before they were the slick, settled and reasonably happy outfit they are now.

“In my two years at the Lions, the coaching staff changed four times – from Jake White to Dick Muir to John Mitchell and then Johan Ackermann. So it was never consistent, which you need to fit in as a player. But I wanted to play SuperRugby. I wasn’t helped by a knee injury and then I missed a tour when my first child was born,” Mokuena recalls.

Before taking up coaching, Mokuena spent three years in the corporate world and, coupled with some bad experiences of how coaching should not be done at the Lions, it has helped shape his own coaching philosophy.

“You see what works in the corporate world and there are a lot of similarities with sport. You learn how to work better with people and how to manage people. Not everyone dances to the same music, you have got to discover what works in your set-up and figure out what sort of people your players are.

“A coach will impact more young people in a year than most people do in a lifetime, so it’s about those person-to-person relationships and creating an environment to grow people, a family environment,” Mokuena said.

The married father of three, who says his biggest playing highlight was winning the man of the match award for the Royal XV against the British and Irish Lions in 2009, says the future goal is the Springboks, but the now is his focus.

“The ultimate goal is to be Springbok coach, but at the moment I’m just focusing on getting the structures right for the Leopards, the Currie Cup is my immediate goal. The Varsity Cup has gone, we’ve ticked that box, and the Currie Cup is next, I want everyone to see we are going about things the right way here.

“The Black coaches have always been there, it’s just about opportunity. It’s slowly opening up but we don’t want to be appointed because of our colour,” Mokuena said.

The stately Varsity Cup trophy sitting in his office in Potchefstroom proves the waves Mokuena is making have nothing to do with window-dressing.

http://www.citizen.co.za/1077177/mokuena-making-waves/

The Sharks will be eager to put a torrid 2015 behind them as they begin pre-season training for 2016, director of rugby Gary Gold saying they will be looking to start a new era of success for the KwaZulu-Natal side.

“Everyone’s had a good break so now we need to hit the ground running. I hope this young side will be energetic and enthusiastic, because I see this as a new era and I’m certainly excited, keen to put the last year behind us as quickly as possible,” Gold told The Citizen before the Sharks started their pre-season training on Tuesday.

Despite his optimism, Gold conceded that there would be no quick-fix solution to the problems that bedevilled the Sharks in 2015, which saw them finish 11^th in Super Rugby and fifth in the Currie Cup.

“It’s very important to make it clear that we won’t be making any excuses, our performance simply wasn’t good enough, especially for a franchise as big as the Sharks. But an era was coming to an end, we lost a lot of stalwarts and it’s not ideal having four coaches in 18 months at the same time. Change hit us hard and we also had insurmountable injuries, but the bottom line is that the performance was poor,” Gold said.

While Gold is firmly in the camp that favours South African rugby moving forward towards a more free-flowing style, he says defence will be the focus in terms of their Super Rugby preparations.

“Of course I want us to be more of a threat with ball in hand, but defence is the foundation of every good team. I know it’s not romantic, but you learn a lot about a team by how hard they work for each other in defence. We were substantially better in the Currie Cup, our points difference of only -8 shows that, but we need to put pressure on the opposition through our defence.

“A lot of tries these days still come from turnovers, mistakes and poor kicks, and we need to try and force those through our defence. But we also need to be more clever and, strategically, to think more out of the box. Robert du Preez [the new assistant coach] also ticks a lot of boxes for us, he’s a hard taskmaster and there are no half-measures with him,” Gold said.

Sanzar are expanding the SuperRugby competition in 2016 and this has caused them to introduce a new four-conference system for the Southern Hemisphere’s premier rugby tournament.

The Australian and New Zealand conferences are staying the same, but the South African group is being split into two conferences, featuring three new franchises. Argentinean participation in SuperRugby has been confirmed with a team to be based in Buenos Aires, while the Southern Kings will in all likelihood be the sixth South African franchise.

This leaves space for another franchise – the 18^th SuperRugby team – and Sanzar are throwing this open to a worldwide tender process.

The six South African franchises will be split into two conferences, with the Argentinean team in one and the new 18^th participant in the other. The one African conference will only play the Australian franchises in the group stages, while the other will take on the New Zealand sides, but the disappointment of not playing everybody has been counteracted by having to travel less and by restoring some of the mystique surrounding the overseas teams because now they won’t be seen in South Africa every year.

While the South African Rugby Union ditched plans to join an Anglo-French competition – insiders say the IRB would never allow it because it would destroy the strength of the Celtic nations and there are long-term doubts about the viability of a French model that has so many overseas players – they are still keen to increase contact with Europe.

Given the similarity of time zone and the relative ease of travel, it would make sense for South Africa (the most lucrative market in Sanzar) to push for the 18^th franchise to be based in Europe, and France are still the financial powerhouses of rugby in the Northern Hemisphere.

To run a SuperRugby franchise costs around $8-10 million and that is well within the reach of someone like Mourad Boudjellal, who has already led Toulon to the Holy Grail of the Heineken Cup.

Sanzar CEO Greg Peters

Sanzar CEO Greg Peters told Midi Olympique that the selection of the 18^th franchise will rest on the rugby readiness (can they field a competitive team?), commercial programme (will they add sustainable value to Sanzar?) and infrastructure (including geographical factors like time zones) of the applicants.

“It’s an open tender process and the reality is that anyone can apply. We’ve sent Expression of Interest documents to a number of parties already and from June 2 we will start deciding on a short-list of serious contenders.

“We’re obviously looking at viability, a comprehensive business plan and can they rely on their surrounding community to engage with the brand? Will they be able to create interest within their community? It would obviously be a massive risk to take a franchise to where they don’t play rugby at all. Time zones are also a big factor for the broadcasters,” Peters said.

Apparently Singapore have their eyes on a franchise, but they would be reliant on importing players from around the world.

French clubs, already so successful on the European stage, may have their eyes on an expansion of their own.

The new SuperRugby format is by no means perfect, but it represents the best compromise that could be made between the competing interests of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Argentina have now been added to that club and many in the Southern Hemisphere will be hoping for some European flavour being introduced as well.

• All teams will play 15 regular season matches (eight home/seven away or seven home/eight away) made up of:
  • 4 matches (two home/ two away) against one of the African Conferences
  • 5 matches (either two home/three away or three home/two away) against an Australasian Conference
  • 6 matches within their own Conference (three home/ three away)
  • All four conference winners will automatically host a quarter-final
  • They will be opposed by four wildcard teams who will be
    • the next three highest placed teams in the Australasian Group
    • the next highest placed team in the South African Group
    • The winners will contest the semi-finals with home field advantage going to the highest-placed team on overall standings points.

See http://www.sanzarrugby.com/sanzar/assets/Future%20of%20Super%20Rugby/The%20Evolution%20of%20Super%20Rugby.pdf for a graphic representation of the new format.