ON TUESDAY EVENING Jacques Nienaber held his first briefing with the Irish media since starting his new role with Leinster. His decision to swap Cape Town for Dublin came as a major shock when announced last April so naturally, when the two-time World Cup winning coach took his seat at Leinster HQ yesterday, it wasn’t long before he was asked ‘why?’
There’s not many club sides who could lure a coach of Nienaber’s calibre away from the Test game, and not many coaches at his level would fancy the drop back to club rugby.
It’s a statement signing, and the hope within the province is that he can be the final piece of the jigsaw on the back of successive Champions Cup final defeats. During a lengthy chat yesterday, the South African looked and sounded enthused by the project. The players were impressed to see him turn up for work last week already knowing the calls.
Part of the ‘why’ is the project and talent at Leinster but the driving factor was something closer to his heart.
“The international season this year with the Boks was 13 Test matches but since when I left (my home in) Cape Town to start with the preparation camps and all that, it was six months and a day the Sunday that I sat in my house and I had a beer with my boy,” Nienaber explains.
“He said, “you know that you have been away for six months and a day.” I said, “No, I hadn’t realised that.” So, it’s only 13 Test matches but you are never at home. Yes, it’s 38 games (with Leinster) or 40 games so people would say why would you leave 13 games and go to 40 games?
Here, we are playing against La Rochelle in La Rochelle (at the weekend) but I’m at home. My kids are here, I’m going to see my wife. We’re going to have dinner tonight. Tomorrow morning I’m going to wake my kids up, which doesn’t happen when you’re in an international environment.”
Nienaber stresses that the extra time with his family doesn’t mean he sees his new role as a “holiday” on the back of another World Cup win with the Springboks. He is fully aware of the pressures at Leinster and that his arrival only adds to the expectation around the squad this season.
“It’s not an international environment, but it is an environment that will be as challenging as an international environment,” he continues.
“When the opportunity came up with Leinster, I was nervous because I didn’t want to lose that cutting edge, being challenged… I didn’t want to lose that because I feel that makes you a good coach. And that’s why this job for me was a perfect fit. I mean I’m going to be challenged as a coach tremendously.”
Nienaber’s remit will be to take charge of Leinster’s defence, but he is quick to point out he won’t be simply applying the structures and principles which have made South Africa so difficult to beat over the last two World Cups.
I don’t think you can copy and paste because the skillset and the athletic ability that the South Africa players had is different to the Leinster players. The athletic profile here is different and the skillsets are different.
“That’s probably the frustrating part for me, to find out where the skillset of this group is and they do have certain skillsets that are better than what we had in South Africa. Some of them have better athletic profiles and vice versa.
“So the key thing for me is to find out what we have and how we can utilize that with a system that I have in my head. It won’t necessarily be the way that we defended with South Africa, or with Munster for that matter.
“If you look at how we defended with South Africa and with Munster it wasn’t the same.”
Working closely with Leo Cullen, he must also learn how to manage a different set of individuals. What makes the Leinster dressing room tick will be different to what drove the Springboks in France, or the Munster squad during Nienaber’s previous spell in Ireland.
“People are different. So, the way that you get players up for games is different, and that’s the challenge, to find a way how to communicate with a group, how to get responses out of them, to learn their mannerisms and their craic, if I can put it like that.
“The humour in South Africa is different from the humour in Ireland, even last time when I was at Munster. The way you get a message across in South Africa versus the way you get a message across in Ireland is completely different, because the people are different. Their personalities are different, their culture is different, so that’s another challenge you have to get past, which helps you grow as a coach.”
For Leinster, this season is all about getting over the line in Europe again. Across the last two Champions Cup finals Cullen’s side were beaten by a grand total of four points. In Nienaber, they now have a coach who is used to coming out on the right side of tight battles – South Africa winning by a point in their quarter-final, semi-final and final victories in France.
“Sometimes you just need a little bit of luck,” Nienaber says.
“Sometimes you just need a big play, a charge down in a quarter-final from Cheslin Kobe and you win the game by a point.
Sometimes you just need a little bit of luck and sometimes it goes your way and sometimes not, and I know that’s not what people want to hear but I mean that is the reality.
“Sometimes you’re one foot away. Maybe a pass sticks and you score, and you win and nobody will ask questions. But sometimes you knock the ball and it just didn’t go your way. You lose and everybody will ask questions. I think sometimes you just need a little bit of luck.
“The thing is, in big games, it’s going to be that tight and you must try and play the big points well, if I can put it like that, and you must try and nail the big points.
“Hopefully I can add value to that, but there is no silver bullet. There’s no ‘listen guys, if you did this, X, Y, and Z, you will win big games’. You must be in the fight until the last end and then you hope you nail a big moment, and you hope they don’t.”
