Imagine being the man who helped win two World Cups, then being told you are killing a country’s rugby, writes CLINTON VAN DER BERG.
That is roughly how Jacques Nienaber has been treated in Dublin.
He has a good life there. He runs along the Liffey most days, he loves the daily puzzle of coaching, and he is good at it.
Leinster have won the URC in back-to-back seasons with him in the building, and they have reached the Investec Champions Cup final twice. In most places, that would earn him a statue.
Instead, it earned him sniffy criticism, and a newspaper hit piece that called his appointment “a deal with the devil”.
Nienaber quoted it back to the media in June, after yet another European final was lost.
“I don’t think people value me here,” he said. Then he asked the room the question the rest of us have been mumbling for months: “Am I that sh*t?”
To put it in the language he grew up with, no, Jacques, you are definitely not k*k.
Nienaber has plenty of admirers, to be fair. Isa Nacewa says the players “really respect what he has brought.” Donncha O’Callaghan has pointed out that Leinster’s problems are in attack, not defence. Leo Cullen, his boss, called him a breath of fresh air. But the loudest voices have decided that the blitz is the villain, and a boytjie from the Free State is an easy villain to find.
Now comes the news that was always going to hurt. Noel McNamara, the Bordeaux Bègles attack coach, will be Cullen’s successor. Nienaber, two World Cup medals in hand, was linked with the job but passed over for a former academy boss.
MORE: Nienaber’s new boss named
The unassuming South African will say all the right things, because he is a pro. But a man who says he does not feel valued has now been shown he is not wanted at the top. Why keep knocking on a door that is closed, when a braai is burning back home? Why stay where you are tolerated rather than embraced?
South Africa is the obvious answer. Rassie Erasmus and Nienaber built the most successful coaching partnership the Springboks have known. Nienaber’s own record is 27 wins in 39 Tests, a World Cup final won by a single point, and a British & Irish Lions series taken 2-1. Nobody here is asking whether he is “that sh*t.”
BREYTIE: Rassie will get Jacques back soon
I doubt Nienaber would pretend leaving is easy. He has built a life in Dublin and a project at Leinster that he plainly believes in. But the best coaches in the world know when to move on. Ireland has decided it does not need him. Home does.
So come back, Jacques. The welcome will be lekker, and nobody will be calling you a devil.
The post Come home, Jacques appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Imagine being the man who helped win two World Cups, then being told you are killing a country’s rugby, writes CLINTON VAN DER BERG.
The post Come home, Jacques appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
