A lion can’t say no, this is not a lekka game plan

I’M TOTALLY out of my comfort zone standing in front of people, and the level of speeches which you guys made amazes me, and the knowledge that you guys have of different things, is something that I really would like to catch on to, and try to understand, 'cause my whole life, I’ve never been into the political side of things and how it works and why people think a certain way.

The first thing is, please excuse my Afrikaans-English accent. I’m not great at English. I grew up in the Eastern Cape in Dispatch, where English wasn’t spoken often, and then I went to Bloemfontein, where it wasn’t an upgrade (laughter) in English.

Ja, I’ll get to the award and the honour of getting it, I’ll get to that now. And to Mrs de Klerk and the whole foundation, to say thank you, 'cause that’s the first thing on my mind when I think about this, is to say thank you. I’m also a bit embarrassed 'cause it’s definitely not just me, it’s a lot of people that made the Springboks work, that made the change in the Spingboks and how we do things, and I would like to elaborate a little bit about that.

But just to get my mind a little bit off that first, I’m just gonna tell you an example of how I can run out of bandwidth in English. So this friend of mine, his name was Os du Randt, he played prop. You can hear it is a very Afrikaans name, Os du Randt. And we were touring in Australia and we’ve been on a six weeks tour in those days, and we haven’t had a lot of real steaks, meat, South African steaks, and we get to this one restaurant, it’s on the sixth week, the last week of our tour. And the waiter came over there and she says: “What would you like?”

And we all see there’s steak on the menu, lekker proper steak with fat on it and everything, and we al said steak, steak, steak! After a while the lady came back and she said she just wanna know, how would you guys like your steak? Would you like it medium?

And Os said net: “Large!” (shows with hands) We want it large, not medium.” (loud laughter)

So those things happen.

Erm. So ja, first thing is, when I say thank you for that (gesture towards award trophy), I say thank you on behalf of the South African supporters, first of all. I think we don’t know what we have in South Africa when it comes to support. Other countries don’t have Bok-Friday. They don’t have people going to malls to watch together, or to school grounds, or to school halls, and fill it up, and Tyger Valley or get together on a rugby field, or watch it together at home, it’s unbelievable what advantage we have, as South Africans, and that’s not purely by numbers. I talk about passion, and we feel all of that, always. That’s what drives the Springboks.

There was a time when there was just ourselves driving this, because we were rated six-seven in the world and, you know, it’s difficult to associate with losers. And we quickly understood, if we don’t change something, the people won’t be proud, the people won’t associate with us, they won’t feel better, as you rightly say.

I do sometimes think we confuse happiness with hope. I think sometimes when we win, it is sixty, seventy, eighty minutes of happiness, and then, when you go home, the people who suffer, or who’s hunger or doesn’t have a roof over their head, you know, they were happy for those eighty minutes but then they’re sad again. And then the hope is not for every single person who watch the Springboks play and then uh … the hope is not for every single person to become a Springbok, 'cause there’s only been 900 or something like that in the history of the game, so why do I say that?

Because I wanna credit SA Rugby, I wanna credit the people at SA Rugby, I wanna credit the people involved in the franchises, I’m talking about … ag there’s, on the ground level, scouts and people.

How to make this thing fair?

I might quickly explain this. We started in 2013, a programme which was called Elite Players Development Pathway, and when we started it, we said but how are we gonna make this fair? Because we wanna change, and we want the whole country to support our rugby teams, our u/20’s, our women’s teams, our sevens, our Junior Bokke team, our SA A team, and when the Springboks play.

And you can’t just support a team when there’s two coloured boys on the wing, and everybody says ja, it’s in their genes. They can just play wing, that’s that. And funny enough, I played in the Eastern Province and I played in the Free State and the Cheetahs. I coached there and I coached here at the Stormers. When I got to the Stormers in Cape Town, there was a wing called Gio Aplon. Very much like Cheslin Kolbe, the same type of player, and I said to Gio, but you guys are … like everybody tells you that you start believing it, it’s in your genes, you can just play wing. You guys are all small, you play wing.

And I ask Gio, why do most of you guys play wing? And the big boys also play wing. The big coloured boys. And he said to me, it’s easy. You know, if a guy doesn’t have access to infrastructure, if that’s the right word, or rugby fields, and tackle equipment and tackle bags and whatever, it’s two boys coming together there on a piece of grass or in the road, and it’s sometimes not even a rugby ball, it’s, you know, it’s filled socks, or something like that, and they use that as a ball.

And he said what do you learn, when you play against each other, touch rugby all the time? He says you’re definitely not going to learn how to clean out or how to jump in a lineout, or how to scrum in a mall or steal a ball in a ruck. You’re gonna learn how to sidestep or how to chip or how to goosewalk or how to round a guy, and that’s what wings do. So if somebody doesn’t come in and help those guys, because their fathers and grandfathers, the right of them playing for South Africa, was taken away. And they also didn’t have the advantage of playing international rugby, or playing provincial rugby even, club rugby was a thing.

And the same with the black boys in our time, you know, everybody said ja, there isn’t really good props there, and then you look at Ox Nche now, and Bongi Mbonambi, and you look at Trevor [Nyakane], and you look at Thuks [Mchunu], who’s coming through at the Sharks … And the problem was again, it was the access to knowledge, it was the access to people who … their dads, and their uncles who played provincial, or maybe for the Springboks.

So we started this Elite Players Development Pathway in 2013. I was the high-performance manager then. And we wanted to do it as fair as possible, because I think a lot of people think, when you talk of transformation it’s white out black in. Transformation in any other country means change something, that’s transform, you know, ek weet nie of julle weet van ’n skoenlapper, hoe hy verander nie [I don't know if you know about a butterfly, how it changes] (laughter).

But it means change, and it became such a nasty word in South Africa, and we said but, how do we do this naturally? Unfortunately, you can’t start there at the top, at the Springboks in 2013, I’m talking, and just say guys, we’ve got a quota system… I’ll get to that now-now.

Making a player feel safe

Because, my whole coaching philosophy goes around, if a player feels safe in the environment, if you don’t embarrass him about something that he can’t control, and he can express himself, then we’ll have a happy team. But if somebody is nervous to be himself, to take him out of his comfort zone, that’s not good.

So we said, let’s create a database of 75 players, and we have to have three players in each position, sorry for the people who doesn’t follow rugby I’m just gonna explain. So if you have a loosehead, number one, you must have three number ones, three number twos, three number threes. But if you have the three number ones, and all three is white, you go until you have two players of colour also there. But you don’t throw away the three white ones, but you have now five number ones. In some positions we even got to number seven.

If you say hookers. We gotta have three hookers, okay the first one is a player of colour, the second one is a white boy, but okay the third one is also a white boy, okay, we're going until we have in each position two players of colour. In that way we were not “white out, black in”. We built a database of players that are now playing for the Springboks. And that was in 2013.

The only thing we did with those players, it wasn’t even expensive, it was getting knowledge to them, it was getting mentors to them, it was getting the nutrition, it was moving them sometimes from a school which maybe didn’t play rugby to another school, which I don’t think is ideal. I think it would be great if we could uplift those schools where they are and not always move them from one to another.

When we talk about that (gesturing towards award trophy), I’m proud, and it makes me a bit emotional, because I feel sad for the fans, and the supporters. You know, we play for them, and what we produce … you know, I get it, but the guys who did the 2013 Elite Development Players Pathway, and the guys who signed it off, they were the heroes there, and the people on the ground, the scouts, the guys who get the Fassi’s through and Jaden Hendrikse and the boys, you know, everyone that’s playing now.

And in that Elite Players Development Group, we don’t have quotas where … and I hate that word … I say that in a way that I think it’s embarrassing on both sides. If you think “I’m here as a quota”, and the white boys think: “I’m not playing because there’s a quota coming in”, and I was so against that, and the moment we started opening up about that and we said, but listen here, we’re gonna change, we’re gonna really change. And that is how we operate, how we select the team, how we train, how we select the management. It’s gonna be purely purely purely on what you put out, and how you get better, and how you take ownership. You might not be the best player as you come into the system, but hell, if you’ve got potential, we’re gonna coach the hell out of you until you are good enough.

So first of all thank you, what president De Klerk did, and what the Foundation … thank you for that I appreciate that, but it’s for everybody out there who's been involved, and that includes the supporters.

South Africans have to make plans

Just maybe a litte bit of where are we in the world? I think the world … I think we all know the saying now: “Hulle weet nie wat ons weet nie! [They don't know what we know]” And I think one of the speakers spoke about … I don’t think other countries has to make the plans which we have to make, on the run. I’m not talking rugby, I’m talking about the guy who has no food and he sees the traffic lights are out and he puts on an orange bib and he controls the traffic there by the traffic light, even the traffic officers listens to him, you know, he allowed them to run, and he’s gotta ghardjie next to him and as you drive past you throw out a five rand and the ghardjie picks it up and that’s how the guy makes money. And you know, we don’t have electricity always, and I see maybe in February it’s coming again (murmuring from the crowd “tonight”). Tonight? Ssss, ja, okay, tonight! But I mean we moan about it but we get around it!

I’ve coached in other countries where everything works, and then sometimes when you get to the rugby field, they also expect everything just to work, and South Africans are not like that. It makes us a very very special country that we find a way. And I’m proud almost of that. I don’t want our lives to become so easy … you know, we take the township boy and his township tackle, and we incorporate that, you know, the way he do the township tackle.

Or the private school boy who knows this helluva gameplan, or the normal government school laaitie who’s there off the farm and he doesn’t worry, he just wants to scrum all day. And I think if we understand, if we take the strength of our diversity, we are unbelievably blessed with different things we could do that other countries can’t do. They’re all the same, one-track-minded. It’s great this, great that, great, great, and I’m not nailing them.

I lived in Ireland. Wonderful people. Wonderful people. Jiss, now I must count my words that I don’t erm, but they once made a headline when a swan was killed. A swan, you know, a bird (makes flapping arm gestures). They were looking for the swan for seven to ten days. And I was thinking, uhm, I don’t even know if we have swans in South Africa, but then again the Irish people are so good. They were so good to me and my family when we were there. It’s such a safe place, you know.

I missed actually the Hi-Aces and the teedeeeet! teedeeeeet! We understand now, let them go by, pick up the guys, we got used to that. If you press a hooter there, in Ireland, phew! Klein stuurwieletjie [little steering wheel] (gestures hands that get put in handcuffs), they take you to the… you know… it’s a very controlled system. And I think we envy that, we envy that everything must work, and I think we must strive towards that, but hell, I also think we must celebrate that we find a way around things, and not always be gatvol, and when somebody moans … we chatted as a bunch of players, in the first World Cup, we all said, ja, we must inspire, we must inspire. I said, we’re sixth in the world, how can we inspire? You know, let’s first win, and they agreed sort of, but not really.

They’re on the Twitter and Instagram ... I said, Siya, how you think you’re playing? No, lekker coach. I said, no, you’re playing…. SWAK [weak]. Don’t believe what they saying on that Twitter about you. Play better. Don’t listen to what the people on social media say about you where you get like 30 likes and you think you played better. No!

And we said, we’re only going to inspire when people see one thing, which is coaching hard, working hard, and on that field, doing everything for the country, then the people will be happy. And even still, if you lose, they will still be unhappy. So until you win, then we might inspire.

Playing for the lady in the Post Office

So Mapimpi [Makazole] came in the Japan World Cup, and he wrote something on his arm. Now you know, Mapiemps, he didn’t speak a word English, he’s like, we just head nodded when we chatted to each other. If it wasn’t for Andile Stick, I swear there was one stage where I probably would have … I didn’t trust Mapiemps, because he fell in the game against Australia, and his knee twisted, and I went to the doctor and said ask him what’s wrong, what’s wrong, and he finished the game. Afterwards I went to Mapimpi and said Mapimpi what’s wrong? And he said, my knee, my knee.

And I said, no man ... foolishly, stupid (of me)… I went to the coaches and said, no, I think this boy is … he’s loafing. And eeeeerm Zwandile said to me hayibo, wait wait wait, come with me, and he called in Mapimpi and they spoke … rattatattattata … I couldn’t lekker hear what they were saying, and I just saw Stokke nodding and he tapped on Mapimpi and said go. And he said, hey, I think this guy tore his meniscus in his knee. And I felt so bad, and he went back home, out for six months, meniscus tear, but he grinded through the game, didn’t go off, and I thought he was …

So for us to start understanding, and minding each other, taking a little bit more time, I think it will really take us far … I actually forgot what I was gonna say … oh ja, it was about Mapimpi writing on his arm in the World Cup. It irritates me, side shows, on the field, because I want us to think about rugby and how we’re gonna win, and Mapimpi had this and he scored four tries, and he kissed his arm, and I thought they were beautiful tries, but what are you doing man, what are you doing?

And he came to me and he said, there was a lady who was killed in a Post Office here in Cape Town, I don’t know if you guys can remember that, and he said, no, he played for her. And I thought, okay, and we then went through to the semi-finals, and then the team started saying … ek ry sommer bietjie hoendervleis, ehhhr, what’s it … as buddy of min who’s Afrikaans said, when he gets hoendervleis, he said I get chicken pocks (laughter)… erm it’s goosebumps hey? Goosebumps ja. Eerrrr, and the team started saying, but, let’s play for South Africa, 'cause we’re in the semi-final, even if we lose, we’re fourth, were fourth, we’re not sixth.

And the guys started gathering social media stuff, and we got a screen inside the team room, and it’s just people sending messages. It just got more and more and more, and it was Xhosa and English and Afrikaans, and you know farmboys, and a guy sitting there in a village, and a young boy who knows all the Springbok team’s names and he pronounces it wrong, and we just went on Friday nights when we’re lonely there in Japan, we just went and watched that screen, and that started the whole thing where we wanted to share, and we wanted to play for South Africa, and the boys now still talk that the tryline is our home, it’s South Africa. You know, the moment anybody gets close to the tryline, they get close to South Africa.

And by that I’m not sucking up or trying to be emotional. But it does get emotional, and sometimes you give your everything and you lose, and we understand the people are upset. But I get the feeling that South Africans are starting to understand the players, the media, you guys who watch it, I might not always understand the politicians, but we wanna say thank you from our side when we get stuff like this. I mean, Siya’s a guy from … when he was small he didn’t have toys, he played with bricks. That was his car. In Despatch he would’ve put mags on for the bricks, and today he’s probably the guy who’s one of the most well-known players and captains in the world.

Now, every boy won’t reach that, but I think, we can give every guy a fair chance, and not all of them will become Springboks, but I think if we keep on doing projects like that Elite Player Development Pathway, where we slowly give them all the tools that they need, and then when they’re on top, you know, then it’s purely picked on talent. I’m giving you my word, as we pick the team currently, we don’t count numbers, we count talent, and then the team runs out like it runs out.

So where are we in the world? We’re currently number one and I think what we must do is stay nice and humble and don’t put it out there all the time and like we do in South Africa, we just go on with our thing and find a way and find a way, because that’s our motto in the team, “you can’t say no for a plan”. We give you opportunity, we decide together what’s our plan on Saturday, it’s like a bunch of lions, you know, the one lion can’t say no, this is not lekker game plan, I’m not gonna hunt like that, then he’s not going to eat.

So our principle is we’re all in, we all eat at the end of the day, we all drink out of the cup, we all celebrate with South Africa, and in our team, we write down the things that bother is, culturally, we cater for Muslim, Christian, coloured, Afrikaans, English, and it is difficult to manage, but we just say, as long as what you do does not stop the Springbok way of doing things, and the Spingbok way of doing things is doing it for the whole of South Africa. That’s what we hope to do, and I think that I’ve got nothing more to say.

I just want to say thank you.

♦ VWB ♦

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