Like sands through the hourglass… so are the Rugby Days of Our Lives…

The saga of the appointment of a new Springbok coach in South Africa has almost singlehandedly made up for the lack of Southern Hemisphere rugby news in recent weeks!

In today’s Episode of this Soap Opera, “Rugby Days Of Our Lives“, the following:

• SARU big shots seen hanging around Loftus
• Speculation continues about who will be his support staff package
• Will Victor Matfield become part of the Bokke coaching staff?
• Who was snubbed, why they were snubbed…
• Who slept with whom

OK I admit, the last one was taking it a bit far… we really don’t want to know too much about Stormers bedroom business, do we!

Sport24

Two of SARU’s top brass were spotted at Loftus Versfeld on Tuesday, which adds fire to the rumour that Heyneke Meyer will be appointed as the new Springbok coach on Friday.

The Beeld newspaper reports that SARU CEO Jurie Roux and vice president James Stoffberg attended a meeting at Loftus Versfeld with several directors of the Blue Bulls Company.

The main discussion point at this meeting is unknown but negotiations to release Meyer from his contract at the Bulls were probably hot on the agenda.

This comes after Meyer and Roux also met over the weekend, apparently to finalise his contract as Bok coach.

Some directors at the Blue Bulls are still unhappy with Meyer’s departure after he was appointed less than a year ago, but compensation is all that can legally stand between Meyer and his new job.

Further points of discussion were probably to also release two other members of the Bulls’ coaching staff.

Meyer apparently wants to take defence coach John McFarland and conditioning expert Basil Carzis with him to the Springboks.

Both McFarland and Carzis have contracts at the Blue Bulls.

rugby365

Retired Springbok lock Victor Matfield may be the next big name to be added to Heyneke Meyer’s coaching Dream Team.

This website has reliably learnt that intense behind-the-scenes negotiations are underway to add the name of Matfield to an already impressive list of backroom staff that could also feature John McFarland, Jacques Nienaber, Rassie Erasmus, Paul Treu and Basil Carzis.

While the announcement of the new Bok coach, to replace Peter de Villiers, won’t be made till Friday, it is the country’s worst kept secret that Meyer has raced so far clear it has become a no-contest.

And with the South African Rugby Union’s brainstrust set to rubberstamp his appointment at a series of meetings on Thursday and Friday, the debate has now shifted to who will join Meyer’s backroom staff.

Matfield has made no secret of the fact that he did not want a foreign coach to take charge of the Boks, and late last year told this website that Meyer taught him everything about rugby.

“He installed everything [I know] and the way I look at rugby. It is difficult to compare other coaches to him because Heyneke got me as a youngster and made me,” he told this website in an interview to mark the Cape Town launch of his book, Victor: My Journey.

“I worked very well with Frans [Ludeke, the current Bulls coach], whereas Heyneke ‘formed’ me as a rugby player. I enjoyed both coaches.”

With Meyer set to be the Boks’ head coach, Matfield could easily be fast-tracked from a part-time Bulls advisory position to a full-time post on Meyer’s team.

The outcome of some boardroom battles in the next few days will determine if Meyer gets his Dream Team – with the Bulls and Stormers administrators becoming very wary over the expected exodus of coaching intellect from their franchises.

The intense behind the scenes negotiations will also determine if respected coaching gurus like Nienaber and McFarland will be released by their unions.

It is understandable that the Stormers would not be happy to lose the expertise of a Nienaber just a couple of weeks after Erasmus walked out on them.

The loss for the Bulls camp could be much more devastating – McFarland, Carzis and Matfield.

The other coaches on SARU’s list of “preferred candidates” – which at the outset contained the names of Meyer, De Villiers, Allister Coetzee and Gert Smal – may wonder why they have not been afforded the opportunity to assemble such a prestigious squad and simply had to accept SARU’s terms?

However, there is a train of thought that SARU are merely repaying Meyer for the great injustice he was done four years ago, when De Villiers was appointed ahead of him in controversial fashion.

Dispatches from Newlands now suggest that Coetzee was dropped from that SARU ‘shortlist’ without anybody actually speaking to him.

At least De Villiers was afforded the courtesy of an informal chat with SARU CEO Jurie Roux, when the message was loud and clear: “There will be no extension for Divvy.”