South Africa’s national rugby coach puts merit before race.
In South Africa, it is a custom that fans try dictating to coaches which players should be on squads and in line-ups. The traditional applies especially to national teams. Fans’ expectations align accordingly, and it puts coaches in a squeeze position: Do what fans want or else.
Courtesy: Daily Maverick
Springboks coach, Rassie Erasmus, has no time for such nonsense, though. And he has been that way ever since he took over the coaching reins. He walked into an untenable situation. His predecessors–Heyneke Meyer and Allister Coetzee–often responded to fans’ preference for a 50/50 squad balance concerning players’ race.
But Rassie made it clear from the beginning that he’d accommodate 45% on the basis fo race and no more. Players would be selected primarily on merit. It worked.
If you look at record against the #1 team in the world, New Zeland, you’ll see these results: a close 34-32 win, a 36-34 loss, and a 16-all draw on the weekend. Those outcomes are enough to put Rassie into fans’ good books. He’s also gotten under New Zealanders’ skin, too!
Make no mistake about it. Rassie didn’t lick fans’ arses and opt to select players based on color. If he had, most likely he’d be languishing in the streets without a contract.
In supporting Rassie’s pragmatics, one fan put it this way: “If the issue of quotas is what ‘we as black South Africans’ will always exploit as ground upon which we can fall on whenever selections of our national teams are announced, especially rugby and cricket, then Whites can relatively probe a claim, ‘Why Neil Tovey, Andrew Tucker, Eric Tinkler, and Roger De Sa, were the only whites in the 1996 Bafana AFCON squad?’ This balancing of quotas has been nothing but an encumbrance to the success of our national teams.”
Way to go, Rassie!
