Ken Borland

Finding common ground with the Super Rugby franchises and northern hemisphere clubs who have potential Springboks will be Heyneke Meyer’s priority, the new South Africa coach said on Monday.

Meyer was appointed on Friday as former coach Peter de Villiers’ successor and will be tasked with rebuilding a Springbok team that has lost stalwarts in captain John Smit and vice-captain Victor Matfield, while the international futures of stars such as Fourie du Preez, Jaque Fourie, Danie Rossouw, Gurthro Steenkamp and Francois Steyn are in doubt because they are based overseas.

This year’s SuperRugby competition runs from February through to August, with Meyer’s first assignment sandwiched in the middle as England visit South Africa for three tests in June.

“SuperRugby is going to put pressure on. All of the franchises want to win, I’m realistic enough to know that, so it’s a big challenge. But it’s also the first year that there are three tests in the middle of the competition and there is no successful method to go back and see what works.

“It’s a fresh challenge and I would like to have a national planning session. I’m on good terms with most of the franchise coaches and I want to see if we can come to a win/win situation, especially in terms of conditioning, which will require a big step up,” Meyer told reporters in Pretoria on Monday.

“I also want to see if it’s possible for me to go overseas and speak to the players there. I’ve spoken to a lot of agents to see who’s available and who’s not available, but we have some quality players overseas.

“The conditioning of the players in the northern hemisphere is one of my concerns. The Heineken Cup is a very tough competition and a lot of the players are conditioned very well, but they peak at different times and I have a few ideas I need to discuss with them and the clubs, again to see if we can come to a win/win situation.”

Meyer stressed that it was also up to the players to show mental toughness in the face of playing schedules that have become more and more demanding.

“We need to rotate players better at SuperRugby level, but I’m also a big believer in mental toughness and the more the players hear and read about burnout, the more they believe it. We can’t make excuses about conditioning, we need to plan and manage our players better,” Meyer said.

The former Bulls director of rugby said one of his other immediate tasks will be to study current rugby trends and make sure the Springboks adapt to the changes in the game.

“I’ve studied a lot of rugby lately and the game changes every six months with the new law interpretations. If you’re not adapting to those changes, you’re going to be left behind.

“The one definite thing that has to change is our conditioning. The guys are playing much more rugby and the game is much quicker; most tests are lost in the last 10 minutes, so you need athletic players.

“It will be important for me to do a lot of research because the game has definitely changed. It’s imperative, though, that we still use our strengths to our advantage and the basics are always the same. We have our own style and we must stick to that.

“I would like to install a national style of play and defence, but I’m realistic enough to know that you can’t force it,” Meyer said.

One of South Africa’s current five Super Rugby franchises will lose their place in the southern hemisphere provincial competition after the South African Rugby Union (Saru) confirmed on Friday that the Southern Kings will enter the competition in 2013.

That means one of the existing franchises – the Stormers, Sharks, Bulls, Cheetahs or Lions – will be out of the lucrative tournament, unless Saru can somehow convince Sanzar (South Africa-New Zealand-Australia rugby) to allow a sixth South African team to play in the competition.

“The Kings’ place in the Super Rugby competition in 2013 was confirmed by the general council, who gave it 100% support,” Saru chief executive Jurie Roux told a news conference in Cape Town on Friday.

“A final decision on the fate of the other five franchises will be made at a special general meeting on March 30 after the council has considered recommendations by the unions. There are a number of options, including asking Sanzar to include a sixth South African team,” Roux said.

The Southern Kings are based in the Eastern Cape – the hotbed of black rugby – and their inclusion in Super Rugby has been backed by politicians and those unhappy with the pace of transformation in South African rugby. None of their constituent teams – Eastern Province, South-Western Districts and Border – play in the premier division of South Africa’s domestic Currie Cup competition.

Eastern Province were beaten 43-12 by Boland in last year’s First Division final.

Heyneke Meyer, who built the Bulls team that has provided the foundation of the Springbok squad for the last eight years, was named as the new South Africa national coach in Cape Town on Friday.

The 44-year-old Meyer, who steered the Bulls to four Currie Cup titles between 2002 and 2006 and then their first Super 14 crown in 2007, has been appointed on a four-year contract.
“It’s truly humbling but also a huge honour and responsibility because the Springboks carry the hopes and dreams of the whole country,” Meyer said at a news conference in Cape Town on Friday. “I want to get the support of everyone behind the team and to do that I have to pick the best possible team. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, it would be easy to promise the world, but I need to plan very thoroughly.”

Former Leicester coach Meyer succeeds the controversial Peter de Villiers, who won a single Tri-Nations title and beat the British and Irish Lions in 2009 before guiding the Springboks to the quarterfinals of last year’s World Cup in New Zealand.
Meyer had initially been the favourite to succeed Jake White in 2008 when De Villiers was appointed, and he subsequently quit rugby before joining Leicester in June 2008.

South African Rugby Union (Saru) chief executive Jurie Roux said they had head-hunted Meyer this time around.

“This process started on June 9 last year and the timeline was set to today. We decided to head-hunt the Springbok coach because we knew exactly what we required. Our mandate was simple – to get the best coach to make the Springboks a winning team,” Roux said.
The qualified sports psychologist has been named by lock Victor Matfield, the most-capped Springbok, as the best coach he ever worked under.

Meyer is currently the rugby executive at the Bulls, but Roux said they had no option but to release him for the Springbok job.

“There is no breach of contract because Heyneke had a very definite exit clause for the appropriate position, which this obviously is,” Roux said.

Former Springbok and current Ireland forwards coach Gert Smal was thought to be the frontrunner to succeed De Villiers, but has recently signed an extension until 2013 to his contract with Ireland, leading to Saru’s seemingly rushed negotiations with the Bulls.

Meyer said that he believed it was his calling to eventually coach the Springboks.

“It’s been a long path with the Bulls, but we both realise there are bigger things. I believe that it is my calling to be the coach of the whole nation, not just one province.”

Meyer said that his first task would be to appoint his back-up staff, in consultation with Roux.

“It’s very important that we have the best people involved and a lot of them are in contract – if they aren’t it means that they’re probably not good enough. So there will have to be a lot of negotiation. The national coach shouldn’t have an ego and it would be arrogant for me just to rely on my own resources.”

Meyer said he will also be travelling around the franchises to learn about the character of the men he will be considering for the Springbok team and that it would be too early to name a captain in the wake of John Smit’s retirement.

“We have a very tough start against England, but I’m up for the challenge and we have brilliant players. There are only two types of rugby I know – winning rugby and losing rugby – and I prefer the first one.

“The World Cup is obviously very important to win, but I’m a big believer that whenever you’re on the field, you have to want to win.

“I’m not there to build a Springbok team, I’m there to win,” Meyer said.

England will be the new coach’s first opponents when they come to South Africa in June to play three tests.