WHILE HE HOPES to remain in his role, Jacques Nienaber has admitted he is uncertain if he is still going to be Leinster senior coach at the beginning of next season.

Since officially taking up his position within Leo Cullen’s backroom team in the winter of 2023 – weeks after steering South Africa to a Rugby World Cup as head coach – Nienaber has helped to guide the eastern province to a United Rugby Championship title and a brace of Investec Champions Cup final appearances.

Yet there have often been question marks over whether the defence specialist’s philosophy is a good fit for Leinster, and this has only heightened since their latest European showpiece defeat to Bordeaux Bégles in Bilbao last Saturday week.

Over the course of a fascinating sit-down at Leinster Rugby HQ in UCD on Bank Holiday Monday, Nienaber bluntly expressed his belief that he doesn’t feel valued in his present position within Irish rugby.

Referencing a past article in a national newspaper (which was largely complimentary to Nienaber) that said Leinster “was ready to do a deal with the Springbok ‘devil’” in a bid to reverse their fortunes in the Champions Cup, Nienaber also suggested the media and the public have a major influence when it comes to coaches potentially losing their jobs.

“Who fires you? Do you know who fires you? The public, the media, they fire you. Not the CEO, not Shane [Nolan, Leinster Rugby CEO]. He doesn’t fire me, but you guys fire us. Fire all coaches.

“Because the pressure builds up and builds up, and the fan then builds the pressure on them. Then they just ask this and say: ‘Listen lads, I think we must part ways.’

“When I say you guys, I’m saying the media. There’s a misconception that people get fired by the CEOs. That is because of pressure put on CEOs by the boards, by people listening.

“Or let’s say the board member has dinner with his mates and his friends, and they go: ‘Sheesh, you signed a deal with the devil, man. You signed a deal with the devil, you need to get rid of that devil, he’s killing Irish rugby.’

“Then he goes: ‘Maybe they’re right, maybe they are,’ and that’s how you get fired. So your question is: ‘Listen, am I going to be here?’ I hope so. Okay. Currently I’m not sure, to be honest. Because I don’t think people value me here. They don’t value me here. They don’t.”

Although Nienaber went on to state that “the moment you lose the team or the fan, you’ve got to go,” he doesn’t believe he has lost the changing room at Leinster and that his record at the province indicates he still has the trust of the players within the set-up.

“I’ll ask you this, do you think that a team that has lost a European final and is playing in a [URC] semi-final, that haven’t won a trophy for four years – [until] we won the URC last year – do you think a coach then loses the training room, if that’s your track record?

“I’ve been here three years, coached two finals and a semi-final of Europe. One semi-final loss, two final losses. Yes, loss. URC, semi-final and a final. Won one.”

As it stands, Nienaber’s contract with Leinster is set to expire at the end of the 2026/27 club season. Leo Cullen’s current deal as provincial head coach is also due to run out next summer, and the Wicklow man has come under external pressure of his own in recent times.

There has always been an interesting dynamic between Cullen and the senior coaches Leinster have employed to work under him, with present Connacht supremo Stuart Lancaster previously spending seven years in the role from 2016 to 2023.

Yet while Nienaber said in an interview with the South African-based SuperSport last November that he was in charge of the rugby programme in Leinster, he was keen to stress yesterday that doesn’t mean he tells Tyler Bleynedaal how to run the attack or Robin McBryde how he wants their maul and line-out to function.

Nevertheless, Nienaber remains an influential figure in Leinster with the much-vaunted blitz defence that he deployed as Springboks coach now a common feature of their play.

There have been times when this strategy has reaped rewards, but the aforementioned Champions Cup final defeat to Bordeaux on 23 May saw them conceding five tries in the opening half of a game they eventually lost 41-19.

Speaking in the build-up to his side’s URC quarter-final win over the Lions at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, Cullen acknowledged there are lots of things from this season that could come under review – including the team’s style of play.

When asked if he’d be willing to change the way Leinster defends as a team if he were to stay on for the 2026/27 campaigns in the URC and the Champions Cup, Nienaber insisted his responsibility is to do what is best for the province rather than himself.

“If it is successful for the club, I will always serve the club. The moment you are not serving the club, your ego is done. I mean, before I went to Munster, I coached the drift defence at the Stormers [who Leinster face in a URC semi-final at the Aviva this Saturday], and we were pretty good at it, have a look,” Nienaber added.

“It’s not the case that I don’t understand the other system; I understand it. There’s not one that’s better than the other. You must believe in one; the team must believe in one. If the players don’t believe in that anymore, and we have to do a drift defence, it’s: ‘Can I coach them the best drift defence in the world to make them win?’

“If the answer is no, then s**t, I’m not the right guy. If the answer is ‘yes, I can do it’, that’s the thing. Can you be the best value for the club?”