Jacques Nienaber is busy plotting the downfall of a team he served as defence coach for from 2008 to 2014 ahead of Saturday’s Vodacom URC semifinal, but it appears he believes it will be the last time he will be pitting himself against the DHL Stormers as a Leinster senior assistant.
The Leinster wait on the fitness of seven international players ahead of the top-four clash with the Cape team has been overtaken in focus in the Irish media and indeed in sections of the UK press by Nienaber’s rant in a press conference at the start of the buildup week.
Nienaber’s high press defensive system played a big part in suffocating the Fidelity SecureDrive Lions’ danger men when Leinster ran up a one-sided 59-10 win over the South African team in their quarterfinal last weekend. But if Nienaber was given any credit for that, it was lost against the weight of the, in some cases, personal criticism he copped after Leinster’s loss to Bordeaux-Begles in the Investec Champions Cup final.
Nienaber, who took up the role of Leinster head coach Leo Cullen’s senior assistant, a role previously held by current Connacht head coach and former England coach Stuart Lancaster, arrived at Leinster after being the Springbok head coach when they successfully defended their Rugby World Cup title in France in 2023.
He is contracted until the end of next season, which ends in June 2027, but he has cast doubts over whether he will see the contract out, saying that the fans and media will decide his fate.
“Let me put it this way, who fires you? Do you know who fires you? The public, the media, they fire you,” said Nienaber.
“Not the CEO, not Shane (Nolan, the Leinster CEO). He doesn’t fire me. You guys (the media) fire us, you fire all coaches. Because the pressure builds up and builds up, and the fans then build the pressure on them (the officials), and then they just ask this and say, ‘Listen lads, I think we must part ways’.”
Nienaber added that there was a misconception that coaches get fired by CEOs but instead it was a decision made by people who had put pressure put on them by the media. He repeatedly referenced an article by the Irish Independent’s Ruadhri O’Connor, who has been particularly acerbic in his criticism of Nienaber over a long period and penned a piece last year in which he said Leinster had signed a deal with the devil by appointing the successful Bok coach.
“I’m quoting Ruadhri there, ‘You signed a deal with the devil, you need to get rid of the devil, he’s killing Irish rugby’. That is how you get fired. So your question is am I going to be here (next year)? I hope so, but I am currently not sure, to be honest.”
Nienaber, when pressed on why he might not be sticking around, said, “Because I don’t think people value me here. They don’t.”
When he was asked if Cullen valued him, Nienaber said the decision went beyond the director of rugby: “The moment you lose the changing room or the club, the fan base, you’ve got to go. You could just hang there and get your cheque, but no, not if they don’t want you there.”
Nienaber said that he believes the Leinster players are still onboard with his methods and made a reference to Leinster’s record of consistently making semifinals and finals, and winning the URC once, since he arrived in Dublin.
Leinster will be pressing for a second successive URC title over the next few weeks but like their Stormers opponents in Saturday’s semifinal, they’ve had a few injury issues which need to be dealt with before the game. Cullen has confirmed that a decision on the availability of forwards Tadhg Furlong, Dan Sheehan, Ronan Kelleher and Joe McCarthy will be made after the impact of knocks picked up over the past few weeks have been assessed, and the same holds for backline players Garry Ringrose, Tommy O’Brien and Jordan Larmour.