Will Nienaber's presence at Leinster give Irish the edge over Boks?

3 Jul 2024

The shadow of former Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber was always going to fall across the series between the world champions and Ireland now that he is based at Leinster.

Although Rugby World Cup 2023-winning coach Jacques Nienaber is not involved in the Springboks versus Ireland series, which starts with the first Test at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, his name has cropped up a lot.

Nienaber is part of the coaching team at Irish provincial giants Leinster, so it’s inevitable that he would be dragged into the conversation.

Ireland forwards coach Paul O’Connell praised the work Nienaber has done at Leinster since joining at the start of the 2023/24 season. In fact, O’Connell took the time to praise South African rugby in general, especially regarding the inclusion of South African teams in the United Rugby Championship.

While there is some needle between the teams, especially as Ireland have won the last three Tests between the sides but had to look on as the Boks won a fourth world title in Paris last year, there is also respect. Both teams understand how tight the margins are, which is why someone like Nienaber, who has recently been at the very core of the Boks’ dressing room, is so valuable for Ireland.

When asked about Nienaber’s input to the Irish game since joining Leinster last November, O’Connell was unequivocal that it had been a good thing. As one of the best defence coaches in the business, it’s that aspect where O’Connell has noticed a positive change.

“It helps our players because one of the things I notice for us is the better the coaching in the provinces, the better they are coming into us (when they join the Ireland camp),” O’Connell said. “They’ve added another layer to how they defend and think about the game in the last year with Jacques. That’s been a brilliant addition to them. He’s been very forthcoming to them with information, he’s all in with them. It’s brilliant.

“He’s been very forthcoming about what they (the Boks) did and how they did it, and our boys share a little bit of that with us. Some of it is helpful to us, some of it can be a distraction because we’ve got to focus on what’s important to us.”

Not compromising Nienaber

It’s not necessarily a one-way flow of information, though. Bok coach Rassie Erasmus, who is close friends with Nienaber and who worked with him for more than 25 years, will certainly have had at least some casual conversations about Irish rugby with his old mate.

But Erasmus made light of it when asked if he had been getting any information from Nienaber regarding the tourists and whether Ireland would be tapping into the former Bok coach’s knowledge.

“Yeah, definitely they will, no doubt, but Jacques phones me every night and tells me everything about Ireland,” Erasmus said with tongue firmly in cheek. “I'm joking, but rugby is a professional game, and things that worked for us will be implemented there. Some of them you can clearly see are working and some aren't working because the players, countries and cultures are different, along with different coaches.

“You can see a lot on television, and if you follow teams on Twitter (X) you can see their drills, and you can see who is playing, along with the small details. But one thing I can promise you, I will never put Jacques in a position where… he has to help us.

“He’s coaching Leinster now, we would never in our lives take a chance like that of him losing the trust the Leinster guys have put in him.”

Nienaber, for his part, praised the Irish system in the recent Chasing the Sun 2 documentary, having previously worked at Munster with Erasmus.

“The amount of detail they go into is incredible,” Nienaber said in the show that detailed the Boks’ triumphant Rugby World Cup 2023 campaign. “It is microscopic. I did not do more than a tenth of the detail in South Africa that they do.”

Big Irish performance?

While Ireland’s recent record against the Boks is impressive, they have only ever won one Test in South Africa – the first of a three-Test series in 2016.

That’s the challenge they have to overcome this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJEIoLr_NGw

O’Connell, who led the 2009 British & Irish Lions to South Africa, knows how tough it is to win in the republic and understands how seismic the clash will be at Loftus.

The Pretoria rugby cathedral was the scene of one of the most brutal and brilliant Tests of all time when the Boks beat the Lions 28-25 to clinch the 2009 series. Half a dozen players ended up at the emergency ward. It was bonkers.

“We wouldn’t really lean on that experience, no,” O’Connell said in reference to using 2009 as motivation for this weekend. “We’d lean on past experiences ourselves because we’re always trying to evolve, trying to get better, trying to learn from the past so it can help us go forward.

“I wouldn’t say it’s not relevant, you know what the place is going to be like, it’s a fantastic stadium, it has a brilliant tradition of rugby. Their fans absolutely love it, they love playing a part in the game, so you have to be aware of that, but for us it’s about focusing on ourselves as much as possible. When we do that, we tend to do alright.”

After their RWC 2023 heartbreak, narrowly losing to the All Blacks in the quarterfinals, O’Connell believes the players have moved on.

Ireland won the 2024 Six Nations with a single defeat – against England – to show that despite the World Cup setback, they were quick to rebound.

“You recover from it. You’ve just got to move on to the next thing,” O’Connell said. “We’d love to have done better at the World Cup, we just came up against a good side. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb, we climbed most of it but didn’t get the last bit there.

“Then, it’s just on to the next competition. We’d a bit of (player) turnover, Johnny (Sexton) in particular moving on, so we’d love to have won the Grand Slam (in the Six Nations). We could have done it, we mightn’t have deserved to have done it but we’d love to have done it.

“Going on to win the Six Nations, especially with a bit of a turnover in the team, was excellent. “It’s funny how the game goes, the boys really celebrate any victory they have with the team but you’ve got to move on quickly then.

“The next thing becomes the biggest, most important thing. We’ve never won a series in South Africa, as an Irish team we’ve only ever won one game down here. It’s a brilliant place for us to be.” DM

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Not compromising Nienaber