What if Saru had fired De Villiers?

By Langa Sigodi

From the moment that Pieter de Villiers was announced as Springbok coach in 2008, it was evident that win or lose, his tenure would be remembered for one thing, his race. After a dismal Tri-Nations, the calls have been loud for him to get the axe. After his performance review, he has managed to retain his job, and when one browses through the web and tries to gather public opinion, it seems that many believe that it is only his race that has kept him in the job.

The argument against him that is being raised, and that I personally dislike very much, is that De Villiers has inherited an all-conquering, world-champion side and turned them into so-called “world chumps”. He is apparently incapable of leading the Boks, but Saru won’t fire him because he is a coloured man. The thing that I dislike most about this is the idea that the Boks were amazing under Jake White. Of course, he won the World Cup and he deserves all the plaudits he gets for achieving that. De Villiers hasn’t had the chance yet so some perspective is needed.

Under White we beat the All Blacks twice, 2004 and 2005, both times at home. We were not the world beaters people would have you believe. We only won the Tri-Nations once, twice coming last. People complain about De Villiers not dropping certain players, but it took White till 2006, his third year in the job, to realise that the likes of De Wet Barry and Jaco van der Westhuizen just weren’t good enough. At the end of that year, we were humiliated by Ireland and even beaten by England!

The Springboks were incredible last year, and it may be a long time till we beat the All Blacks three times in a year again. White always emphasised the importance of having a psychological edge over your opponents. And though this year damaged us a bit, going into the World Cup next year we have a coach who probably knows better than anyone else how to beat the side that is most likely going to be our semi-final opponent.

Quite simply, De Villiers has probably not done much worse than his predecessor, and that is assuming he hasn’t done better.

Once these facts have been considered, if Saru had fired De Villiers, we would have needed to question why they didn’t fire White after the equally disastrous Tri-Nations campaign in 2006. It would have been really difficult to argue against the notion that he was fired because of his race.

Now that would have been interesting.

Langa Sigodi is a third-year economics student at the University of Cape Town.