SA Rugby accelerates fast-tracking of the development of elite black coaches

SA Rugby on Tuesday released details of their current plan to fast-track the development of South Africa’s elite black rugby coaches and drive transformation in the country. 

The custom-made programme will help provide talented emerging coaches with the skills to play their trade not only at provincial level but at international level as well.

Over the past few months, various participants have attended the programme, which included a masterclass last week presented by SA Rugby Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus and Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber.

Initially, 101 nominations were received from the country’s provincial unions for the programme, which was narrowed down to 32, with 18 of them hand-picked for 2022, the inaugural year of the programme.

The participants include SA Women’s U20 coach and Western Province Women’s head coach Laurian Johannes-Haupt, SA Sevens Academy head coach Sandile Ngcobo, Bulls defence coach Joey Mongalo, as well as Stormers and Sharks skills coaches Labeeb Levy and Phiwe Nomlomo.

The other 14 coaches, meanwhile, have been participating in a development programme which includes working with an industrial psychologist to equip them to follow in the footsteps of their counterparts in future.

“This programme marks a big step for SA Rugby to fast-track the development of our top up-and-coming black coaches and to achieve our coaching transformation goals,” said SA Rugby president Mark Alexander.

“Our vision with this custom-made SA Rugby programme has been to bolster the standing of these coaches within the high-performance structures throughout the country with an eye on equipping them to coach at provincial and international level.

“The process to select the final group of 18 coaches was rigorous and an