Rugby is not an empirical science, which is why there should be quotation marks around the word mistake when referencing what Nick Mallett now reckons was his biggest blunder as Springbok coach.
To refresh memories, or inform those who were too young or perhaps not even born yet, Mallett made a selection that shocked the nation when he dropped the man who had served him so well as a captain a month or two out from the 1999 Rugby World Cup in Wales.
Mallett was convinced at the time he made the decision that it was the right way to go as Gary Teichmann had been struggling with injury and wasn’t in the imperious form he’d been in previously. However, looking back on it, Mallett reckons he undervalued the huge role Teichmann played as the team leader.
And the recognition of his error has made him acutely aware of just how important Siya Kolisi is to the current Springbok World Cup challenge in France. While many might have questioned current Bok coach Jacques Nienaber’s determination to give Kolisi until the last minute to prove his fitness after a serious injury, Mallett fully understands why Nienaber exhibited such patience.
“Having gone through the experience I did after I made the mistake of dropping Gary as my captain in 1999, I completely understand why it was so important for Siya to recover in time and why the Bok coaches were prepared to wait for his readiness for this World Cup,” said Mallett after the publication of his book, Insights into the Rugby World Cup, written with Lloyd Burnyard and published by Jonathan Ball.
REALISED HIS MISTAKE ALMOST IMMEDIATELY
Mallett was not speaking from the perspective of 24 years of hindsight either. He says he knew he’d made a mistake soon after the decision had been made.
“It was really hard for me as I realised I had made a mistake as soon as the team got together for our pre-World Cup training camp in Plettenberg Bay,” he says.
“There was just a completely different feel to the vibe and there wasn’t the togetherness that there had been before. It felt like the players were separate from the coaching staff and there was no longer the feeling of ‘we are all in this together’ that there had been before. It was clear that the majority of the players felt that I had made a mistake in dropping Gary and some even resented it.
“Even Joost (van der Westhuizen), who I had appointed as my replacement captain gave me the impression he felt I had made a mistake. It was clear he was a guy who had backed Gary when he was captain, as had most of the guys.
“It was a very uncomfortable situation to be in going into a World Cup and I felt my decision had destabilised what had been a positive environment before that. The players felt that there was no loyalty, that you could work as hard as you can for the Bok cause but could be dropped overnight. I didn’t realise until after I had made the decision what a negative impact it would have on the players and by then it was too late.”
South Africa’s history at World Cups backs up Mallett’s view. Teichmann had been his No 8 and leader throughout a world record equalling run of 17 matches unbeaten and was the Bok captain when they won the Tri-Nations for the first time in Mallett’s first full year as coach in 1998. The Boks had lost a series to the British and Irish Lions and bombed spectacularly in the Tri-Nations under Mallett’s predecessor as Bok coach, Carel du Plessis, the year before that momentous winning run. So Mallett and Teichmann’s achievement of turning the Boks, who were reigning World Cup champions, back into contenders was a noticeable one.
We use Teichmann and Mallett’s names together when referencing that period as that is essentially what this story is about - the most successful Bok teams have been ones that have had a captain and coach who have been joined at the hip.
KITCH AND FRANCOIS SET THE TREND
Think back to Francois Pienaar in 1995. If you speak to Pienaar today he will still speak glowingly of the relationship he had with South Africa’s first World Cup winning coach, the late Kitch Christie. They’d served Transvaal together when they became the first team to win the Super 10 in 1993, and that Transvaal team went on to win the Currie Cup for the first time in two decades as well as the old Lion Cup knock-out competition.
There was a relationship built around an implicit trust and understanding that both of them fed off and it led to what at that point was South Africa’s greatest post isolation rugby triumph, one that was achieved against massive odds if you consider that the Boks had only been readmitted to international rugby three years before, in 1992.
JAKE AND JOHN SMIT FOLLOWED SUIT
Then there was Jake White and John Smit in the next World Cup winning year of 2007. White had been the coach of the junior national team that the young Smit captained to a global trophy and the relationship and understanding built up between the pair made Smit’s elevation to the Bok leadership a no-brainer once White took over as national coach from Rudolf Straeuli at the start of 2004.
White felt Smit was the perfect Bok captain because he was one of those rare players who was liked and respected by players from all the provincial unions and Super Rugby franchises, and who related equally well to players in all race and language groups.
An example of Smit’s popularity across provincial and language divides that were still quite prevalent back then can be summed up by the fact that if you speak to the former Bok enforcer of the Smit era, Bakkies Botha, you will be struck by the huge affinity and respect Botha had for a player he would have faced many times in clashes between the Bulls and the Sharks.
If would have been easy for Botha to have enmity for Smit, particularly as his second row partner at the Bulls, Victor Matfield, could have seen as a rival for Smit as captain. As one who was frequently on the wrong side of refereeing decisions and perceived to be a disciplinary problem, Smit would also have had to chastise Botha often, something that could have given birth to resentment. But it wasn’t like that at all: Botha told me in an interview I did for a book I did shortly before the 2019 World Cup that Smit was the best captain he played under. And he was very emphatic in expressing that opinion.
Like Kolisi after him and Pienaar before him, Smit was a captain who had universal support within the playing group, something that has not always been the case in South Africa, where often provincial rivalries have led to the formation of cliques within the group. And of course the Bok team has more cultural and language divides to overcome than perhaps any other nation.
SIYA AND COACHES HAVE LONG HISTORY
Kolisi of course had worked with both Nienaber and the national director of rugby Rassie Erasmus, who themselves form a unique leadership duo at the Boks, at the Stormers and Western Province early in his career.
Having the same captain and essentially the same coaches in charge - Nienaber was very much Erasmus’ senior right hand man in Japan four years ago - is an advantage not previous World Cup winning team has had when going into a title defence. Yes, Smit was still the team leader in 2011 when the Boks went to New Zealand as champions, but the coaching reins had switched from White to Peter de Villiers.
The importance of that understanding was why at the time he was writing the book, before it was clear that Kolisi would be fit to lead the team in France, Mallett saw the potential for the skipper to be missing as a potential massive obstacle to the Bok quest to retain the Webb Ellis trophy.
“Siya has the respect of his coaches and his teammates, but the obvious worry is the fact that he is injured,” wrote Mallett.
“At the time I wrote this book, there was no clarity on whether Siya would make the World Cup and that is a serious disruption to a leadership group planning its title defence. There are other options beyond Kolisi if he is ruled out, but it is impossible to overlook everything Kolisi has done during his Springbok captaincy. He has built total trust between the players and the coaches and his overall contribution has been immense…”
Kolisi’s possible absence was why Mallett rated the Bok leadership at 8 out of 10 behind the 9 out of 10 he gave for the Ireland and French leadership going into the World Cup, but that has all changed over the past month or so: Kolisi is there, and his presence is worth more to the Boks than the injury setbacks they have suffered in other areas.
HUMILITY AND WILLINGNESS TO LET OTHERS SHARE LEADERSHIP
His humility and his willingness to delegate and let others lead has always been one of Kolisi’s biggest strengths. It was something that was writ large in his very first game as Bok captain, when England scored early tries at Ellis Park to race to a 20 point lead in even fewer minutes. It was also Erasmus’ first big game as coach, and it looked like the Boks were going to make a disastrous start to the new era, remembering too that they had narrowly lost what was essentially an exhibition test match to Wales in Washington the week before.
“I had no idea what to do. So I had to look to Duane (Vermeulen) and all the other guys who were on the field at that time,” said Kolisi in a podcast with the then WP high performance coach and former Blitzbok captain Kyle Brown (The Leading Conversation) a few years ago when he was still playing in the Cape.
“I don’t speak much. I am not the type of guy that will do those Any Given Sunday speeches before a match. I have started reading the Bible because it is something that means a lot to me. Each team has a theme of the week and I will try and find a verse that works for me in that regard. I started doing it with the Springboks that day we beat the All Blacks for the first time (in 2018).
“The guys know what type of player I am and what type of leader I am. I have always been asked to just go ‘beast mode’ because they feel that that is the way they prefer to follow me. They know that I don’t like speaking a lot. I use the guys around me in the team as well. There are a lot of guys who have leadership skills as well in the teams that I play in.”
One of Kolisi’s biggest attributes as a leader apart from his humility and his appeal across racial and language lines has been his apparent calmness under pressure.
“MostIy will always tell guys to calm down and look at what is working and what is not working. Luckily we have different leaders for different parts of the field – breakdown, lineouts and all that kind of stuff – if something is not working, I will look to the other leaders to tell us what the solution is.”
NEVER FEELS THREATENED
Kolisi added in that same podcast that he preferred the concept of shared leadership. He also made it clear that he was never threatened when there was an alternative leader in the group that others might follow, and instead saw it as a strength for the team.
“Some guys just want take everything onto themselves and if it doesn’t work, then who do they look to? I preferred shared leadership. To be honest, not everybody responds in the same way to the leader. There are some times that they respond to a different style of leadership. For example, Dillyn Leyds might respond better to Steven Kitshoff than me. I don’t mind that, it doesn’t scare me because I know what I am about and what I want to do.
“If I am feeling early in a game that I am not myself, I will go to tell somebody that I trust and that I know will be able to help me out. They will tell me that will take the pressure off my plate and just to make a few tackles because they know that’s what gets me back to where I need to be. Then I will take back the leadership. I am not scared to say when I am struggling. I see that as one of my strong points.”
INCLUSIVE CAPTAINCY STYLE IS BIGGEST BOK WEAPON
It is indeed, and unsurprisingly, given that he is a World Cup winning captain and also that he has become so readily identifiable as the man the others follow in the Bok setup, Kolisi’s status in the eyes of commentators that may previously have doubted his value to the Boks has risen.
Four years ago, in the week building up to the World Cup final, former England flyhalf Stuart Barnes who is now a top commentator and columnist, wrote that for South Africa to have a chance of beating England, Kolisi should be dropped for the ball scavenging abilities of Francois Louw.
However, times have changed, and this past week Barnes penned a column in The Times where, in examining what England appear to be lacking at the moment, he commented on the strength of both Kolisi as a leader but also his willingness to get by with a little help from his friends.
He spoke about how Kolisi and Eben Etzebeth, who was essentially Kolisi’s predecessor as captain, were picked out by the television cameras when they were watching Samoa play Chile in Bordeaux last Saturday, and how the pair were together again when they watched their Bok teammates hammer Romania at the same venue on Sunday.
“Scroll forward 24 hours and the South Africans took the field themselves at the same Bordeaux stadium. Many of the first choice were rested; Etzebeth was out with a shoulder injury. There he was again, next to the sidelined inspirational skipper for the game’s commencement. The two together is quite a statement: ‘you want to beat SA? This is what you have to deal with’. An aura bigger than any other in the tournament. Kolisi and Etzebeth.”
Barnes is right. So is Mallett. You can add a few other names to that list. The clear identification of Kolisi as the leader allied to his all inclusive captaincy style and his willingness to embrace those around him is perhaps South Africa’s biggest weapon at this World Cup.