PdV: ‘I am the boss’
7 Dec 2009
SA Rugby magazine’s hard-hitting interview with the Springbok coach.
Your critics say that your technical knowledge of the game is poor, and that all the technical stuff surrounding the Boks’ game plan comes from your assistant coaches and the senior players. What’s your response to that?
I went to Wales to do my level-two coaching course, and paid my own way. The way it works is that you do the course and then go coach for another two years before you return to do the level-three course. I had just come back to South Africa when the Welsh Rugby Union called me and said they were so impressed by my technical knowledge of the game that they wanted me to do the next course straight away. I chose to do those courses in Wales, because I’ve always admired the great players they had in the ’70s, like Gareth Edwards and JPR Williams. I knew I would be working with equally talented players back in South Africa.
So you do make technical contributions in the Bok set-up?
Of course. When I said the All Blacks were scrumming illegally in last year’s Tri-Nations, I had video footage to back it up. No one else in the Bok squad had spotted it. The same thing happened when I questioned the Wallabies’ scrumming methods this year. I was the only person who saw what they were doing. I also make technical observations about other areas of the game, like lineouts and attack.
Do the senior Boks run the show as some have suggested?
Let me make one thing clear – I am the boss, I am the CEO of South African rugby.
In John Smit’s autobiography he explains how the coaches and the senior players meet the day after a Test to plot the way forward for the week ahead. Why did you decide to have such a democratic process?
A good CEO doesn’t make every decision on his own, he consults with other senior people in the company and gets their input. Why would I not want to listen to my assistant coaches and senior players like John and Victor [Matfield]? They all have something to offer. But the final decision on how we play rests with me.
There’s a rumour going around that Dick Muir made those controversial substitutions against the Lions in the first Test in Durban. True or false?
Let me explain. My voice isn’t suited to the radio we use [to communicate with the staff on the sideline] as I talk too quickly and my voice goes high and then low. Why would I want to talk when I can make use of Dick’s strong voice?
But does the message to make the substitutions come from you?
Yes.
So why did you make all those changes when the Boks were 19 points ahead and in complete control?
You know, if I could have done it over again, I would have made them earlier, because I could see the guys were getting tired and went into a defensive mode. By the time I brought the fresh legs on we couldn’t get out of that defensive mode.
Smit believes the Boks would have won by 25 points if those changes had not been made.
No, I don’t agree with him.
Do you regret the way you handled the Schalk Burger ‘eye-gouging’ episode after the second Lions Test in Pretoria?
No, I don’t.
Why didn’t you just tell the British and Irish journalists at the post-match press conference that you couldn’t comment until you had watched the video? In the end, Smit had to step in and say that.
Why should I have had to do that? The South African journalists in the room should have asked me what it was like to have beaten the Lions in a series. But you sat back and let them ask me those questions [about Burger]. You wanted to see me fail.
But you could have stopped their line of questioning yourself. Why rely on the local media?
No, you should have stopped them. You were all intimidated by them. I saw the look in your faces.
So you have no regrets at all about that press conference and the following one on the Monday?
I regret confusing the words ‘condone’ and ‘condemn’. If I had spoken to [the foreign media] in Afrikaans, I would have won that battle easily.
Then why didn’t you?
No, why man? I just got one word wrong.
Were you given a dressing down at that meeting with SA Rugby after the Lions series?
No, it was just a meeting to discuss the progress of the team. We had a similar meeting at the end of last year.
But you seemed to choose your words far more carefully at press conferences after that meeting. You were a changed man during the Tri-Nations.
I didn’t change. You [the media] changed because we were winning. I will never change. That’s why I say ‘I am who I am and I don’t give a damn’.
Why do you think the South African rugby media want you to fail?
Because your man didn’t get the job.
Who? Heyneke Meyer?
You said it, not me.
Do you think some of the media are racist?
You said it, not me.
Do they irritate you during press conferences?
I know that most of them have played rugby before, but I can tell by their questions that they haven’t played at a very high level. If it hadn’t been for apartheid, I would have played for the Boks.
Let’s go back to the beginning of your stint as Bok coach on the day you got the job. How did you feel when [Saru president] Regan Hoskins said your appointment was ‘not for purely rugby reasons’?
I don’t let the bad things in life affect me.
But how did you feel when you heard those words?
I felt nothing. Regan is entitled to his opinion and it didn’t bother me at all. I know I’m a good coach and that I deserve to be where I am today.
The Boks finished last in the 2008 Tri-Nations after starting the tournament as favourites. Why did you choose to abandon a structured approach for a more expansive one?
What laws were we playing under? We had to adapt our game because of the ELVs. I never said that I didn’t like structure, I said we would play total rugby. When I got the job as coach I said I wanted to take the Boks to the next level.
So you don’t regret adopting the game plan used last year?
No.
Then why the return to a more structured game plan in this year’s Tri-Nations if total rugby was the way to go?
The message came from me that we should kick more this year. Then because we had kicked so much [in the three home Tri-Nations Tests], we were able to surprise the Wallabies in Perth with a running game that resulted in four tries.
What was your lowest point of that somewhat difficult 2008 season?
The sex-tape story, which wasn’t true. I had to watch my 82-year-old mother cry.
Before you were appointed as Bok coach, there was talk that you’d pick 10 black players in the starting line-up if you got the job, yet you finished the Tri-Nations with only two black wings and a black Zimbabwean prop who wasn’t eligible when Jake White was coach. Have you failed in terms of transformation?
If a racist white guy voted for the National Party, but then changed his views after 1994, that is transformation. The Springbok team has been transformed because the colour of a player’s skin doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not going to pick black players to make up the numbers, because I will do them more harm than good.
But there were still only three players in the Bok starting XV. Isn’t that a concern?
Look, I think Adi Jacobs is the No 1 centre in the country, but he got injured and by the time he was fit Jean de Villiers and Jaque Fourie were doing well together so I couldn’t drop either of them. Ricky Januarie is an excellent scrumhalf, but I can’t drop Fourie du Preez. And Conrad Jantjes broke his leg earlier this season. We could have had six players of colour in the starting XV in different circumstances.
But you only had three which is why you were slammed by that transformation committee.
What have they done for the good of this country? What contribution have they made?
You’ve said that the Super 14 coaches are to blame for the lack of black players coming through. Do you stand by that?
Yes, they don’t think black players can make it at that level.
Would the situation be different if three of our five Super 14 coaches were black?
You said it, not me.
Do black players and coaches have to work twice as hard to get the same recognition and plaudits as their white counterparts?
Of course! I’ve had to work 10 times harder than any other white coach to get to where I am today. Why wasn’t I ever offered a coaching job at Super Rugby level?
Is there something wrong with the system when someone like Frans Ludeke, who failed dismally with the Cats/Lions, gets the Bulls job?
You said it, not me.
You have a high profile as Bok coach and earn a big salary. Has that changed you as a person?
I haven’t changed. I still live in the same house in the same area [in Paarl]. It will be hard for me to leave because I want the people in my area to be proud of the fact that they are living near the Bok coach. I still drive the same car that I had before I got the Bok job. It just needs to get me from A to B.
Do people you know expect more from you? Do they ever come and ask you for money to help them buy a car or pay off a loan?
No, do I look like a charity?
By Simon Borchardt
– This article first appeared in the November issue of SA Rugby magazine
494 Comments
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7 Dec 2009, 08:04 am
Shame, poor guy. Easy on the Snor!
7 Dec 2009, 08:23 am
snoring Dragon
7 Dec 2009, 08:28 am
PDV…my advice….for what its worth….
Stamp your authority ….this player power has gone too far….the complacency and Boys club needs to be shook up.
Begin by moving Smit to 2…never again weaken our scrum, the domino effect hurts our loosies and backline, everyone suffers because you trying to accomodate Smit….its bull ****! Either Smit cuts it at 2…or becch…or retirement.
Start making all the calls and decisions, consult with the Assistant cpoach and skipper but this ‘senior boks’ committee meetings are poison!!
PDV has to prove these rumours wrong….if he is the boss lets start seeing it in practice….i am not convinced that there arent some substance to the rumours…..
7 Dec 2009, 08:41 am
What authority?
Helium snor is always good for a laugh.
I’ll tell you a secret Grant, the “player power” is keeping him his job. He is way out of his depth otherwise
7 Dec 2009, 08:51 am
Way to go PDV. You may yet prove to be our best coach ever. Nothing can be coached to players playing at international level. They have to be man managed and you are absolutly the best at that. The results show.
7 Dec 2009, 09:04 am
Wow.
So in one interview Snor has insulted the following people:
Heyneke Meyer
Frans Ludeke
Everyone who voted for the National party before (hence most of the white, rugby supporting public)
All of SA’s rugby journalists
Seems to me Snor has Heyneke Meyer and Frans Ludeke to thank for his recent successes and should be a tad more grateful in that regard.
And I see he thinks he would have played for the Boks if not for apartheid. Just like Cheeky Watson, I guess.
Massive Chip on this guy’s shoulder…
7 Dec 2009, 09:12 am
Huge Tac
In his responces in this interview it shows how much of a wanker PdV. And arrogant and rude.
And it’s hilarious when people are arrogant when they really have nothing to be arrogant about. Priceless. Top laugh. Surely helium cannot be serious with most of the drivel he sprouted here.
Deluded character. hahaha
7 Dec 2009, 09:13 am
This guy is letting his distaste of the media spill over into his public image. I can hardly believe SARU are still allowing this – he should rather just refuse all one-on-one interviews.
7 Dec 2009, 09:13 am
@Tacitus:
Insulted?
Really?
I see it as:
* Heyneke was their man (as he was mine) to take the job and there was a lot of pissed off people when he did not get it, and there was, still is, people who want to see him fail.
* Frans was damn lucky to get the job at the Bulls given his record at the Lions which was even worse than Chester’s if memory serves.
* He has taken a very simplistic view on transformation. I grew up in a white, predominantly Afrikaans speaking family during the 70′s and 80′s. I can say without a doubt that 99% of my family and extended family were racist where they, and even people in our school kept on warning us against the ‘Swart Gevaar’.
Since 1992 and the elections in 1994, I personally found that most of what was said, was absolute bullshit. So did I transform? Perhaps, perhaps not, but I certainly, with other members of my family, do not hold the same views as those held before 1992.
* Most SA journalists deserve the criticism they receive. You saw the reported articles and the transcripts that ran earlier this year and the difference between the two.
7 Dec 2009, 09:15 am
wow, don’t pull the race card much.
Adi Jacobs the No.1 center in the country?
You see, it’s belief and arrogance like that, that have people questioning your ability.
blaming the south african media for not helping You out at the post match press conference vs the Lions? Laughable pal. There weren’t only “white” journo’s there. There were black ones, and even, can you imagine….coloured ones too. Maybe even from Paarl? everyone was probably ducking the hottest topic which was the burger eye gouge unfortunately, right in front of the telly cameras and indefensible…..until you opened your trap.
question: if black players(blacks) have to work twice as hard……then why is the south african labour force one of the most unproductive on the planet?
….that is just a very convinient myth that makes people sleep better and provides an escape to accountability.
7 Dec 2009, 09:16 am
I see KEO needs hits again. Anyone who believes this **** needs serious help!!
7 Dec 2009, 09:17 am
Is this interview for real?
As I was reading it, i was thinking it was a satyrical take on PdV’s ridiculous interview skills.
7 Dec 2009, 09:18 am
OK, I’m out of here. This one could get ugly.
7 Dec 2009, 09:20 am
@Brigadier Van Zyl: “people questioning you ability” who are these people? the media?
7 Dec 2009, 09:22 am
@Tacitus:
You know what I am actually with you.
Dont have time for rubbish like this to be honest.
7 Dec 2009, 09:22 am
to misquote the infamous Julius Malema…
“we do not need the non-whites to think for us”
7 Dec 2009, 09:25 am
@theOracle:
anyone who has heard him speak or watched the Boks in 2008 tri-nations home leg.
7 Dec 2009, 09:25 am
@Tacitus: you’re halucinating again..ha ha ha go back to bed, dinosaur.
7 Dec 2009, 09:34 am
Again… I don’t know why posters are taking this so personally…
PdV was giving honest answers to questions… many of them loaded and aimed right at him…
So you disagree with his answers… then just say so… but all the insults and hate towards this man is crazy… maybe the posters do protesteth too much…!!!
Sure his answers may make people feel uncomfortable… but our past is an ‘uncomfortable’ one and to deny it is being dishonest… It’s is only by acknowledging the past that we can work towards a more just and positive future…
Of course PdV has had to work twice as hard as any white coach before him to gain acceptance from white supporters… Just look at the facts… we’ve just had perhaps our most successful year ever and people are still questioning his abilities or lack of them… What does the guy need to do? It may not have always been pretty but… under PdV we won a Lion’s Series and white-washed the all blacks…!! Look at the record of some of his predecessors … who never faced this sort of hateful criticism…
I think posts here ridiculing PdV and insulting him say way more about the posters than they do about PdV…
But hey guys… if the cap fits…???
7 Dec 2009, 09:36 am
@Tacitus: @PissAnt: I don’t think it will get that bad really… only fools will take the bait and I don’t see any around here.
7 Dec 2009, 09:36 am
Oh please . You said it, not me is just a thick and immature way to respond.
How childish… I though you yes above that Transie
7 Dec 2009, 09:41 am
I think PdV has only worked half as hard. The players run the team after all.
7 Dec 2009, 09:44 am
Anyway, PdV didnt show much brian capacity in this interview.
I thought he was wiser than that. Clearly I was wrong.
I hope this thread doesnt get out of hand. It shouldnt but you never know on here.
Anyway i’m outta here. Play nice kids
7 Dec 2009, 09:58 am
@WP_: @ 21, please look who is talking, check you first post & the one subsequent to it and you want to front on me about being “above” things. gtfoh, you don’t like the man’s answers then stew in you own personal quagmire, you have no steed to get perched on…
@ufo: well you know with Invictus on circuit everything that was sinister & vile about springbok rugby got “washed” during that ’95 “moment” so pdv’s answers are really un-PC for some.
7 Dec 2009, 10:06 am
@Tacitus: @PissAnt: Well spoken , How does Div HAve Meyer and even funnier ludeka to thank ? What next ? Please , dont be a d00s , First it was the players , Then Jake now Meyer and Ludeka ? Sorry to say this but it smacks of plain racism.
Get a another perceptive , take of the pre 92 tainted glasses !!
As a matter of interest , Does coaching certificatiosn/credentials does Ludeka have ?
LAstly , Simon is a &*^%$ . Div 10 – Simon – nil !! LOL
7 Dec 2009, 10:07 am
Trying to generate hits again KEO…what a chop. As mentioned earlier, we have a sordid past and PDV was expressing his views on it, no problem there since we all have our views on the past, some more blinkered than others.
As for the “if it wasn’t for apartheid…I would be a bok” quote, any idiot can see it was taken completely out of context and inserted into that answer because it had nothing to do with the question asked…again, idiot journo’s trying to sell copies of toilet paper masquerading as SA Rugby.
Those of you questioning some of the answers given should perhaps look more closely at the questions asked and see that he replied to those questions put to him. What more do you want him to do?
And finally…yes KEO and co…he is the boss…live with it.
7 Dec 2009, 10:08 am
@WP_: Must be that open secret reading between the line k@k u talking about hey !! Bet u like Steve Hoffmeyer as well.
7 Dec 2009, 10:11 am
“My voice goes high and then low…”
I’ve never heard the low part. It must be audible only to whales, I suppose?
7 Dec 2009, 10:14 am
@TheTackler: Bet you never saw the 3-0 part coming as well !!
7 Dec 2009, 10:24 am
You said it, not me.
7 Dec 2009, 10:25 am
@TheTackler: Thats a good one
7 Dec 2009, 10:27 am
Simon,
Who interviewed PdV?
On its face it looks a cheap fabrication for the following reasons:
PdV English language is poor, a grotesque dialect, and the interview’s stenogram certainly not Pdv’s vocabulary!
So please, could you enlighten us?
7 Dec 2009, 10:33 am
What was your lowest point of that somewhat difficult 2008 season?
The ***-tape story, which wasn’t true. I had to watch my 82-year-old mother cry.
LOL! … i’d also cry if i was this puz’s mother .. imagine the sounds he makes! ….
7 Dec 2009, 10:35 am
@Xhosaskid: Not even funny mate.
7 Dec 2009, 10:35 am
Pretoria – A man from a farm in the Roossenekal district in Mpumalanga has been “executed” with his own firearm in a revenge attack.
Gawie Hough, 42, was attacked two months after a former employee of his brother Deon, 41, threatened him with the words: “I’ll show you what I can do with a white man.”
This country is in its moer … Racism from my side only my ***! …
7 Dec 2009, 10:37 am
@WP_:
You don’t even know how to spell brain.
@Dantalian:
Yep, you said it, not me!!
7 Dec 2009, 10:39 am
stick it to these white d.ck heads Pdv, all of them, especially these little snot nosed prick journalists who think the sun shines out some white ******* between their legs. And he’s quite right, a black player or black coach needs to perform 100 times better than his white counterpart just to get the same recognition. Guess what, racism is still alive and well in post apartheid South Africa and especially in rugby circles. It breeds and infest’s itself in some twats who still can’t shake it, and its these same twats who still believe they better or superior due to some trick of nature which have them a white skin instead of a black one.
Yeah I.m talking to the likes of WP and the rest of those on here which list of names is just too long to mention. Your outright racism sticks out like one emaciated elongated indoctrinated fat white sore thumb.
7 Dec 2009, 10:43 am
These questions by SA rugby magazine are so disrespectful bodering on Racism.
This guy should be reported!!
The interviewer should be fired…in any first world country anybody asking stupid questions like this would have been fired.
7 Dec 2009, 10:43 am
I believe the fabricated interview was written by Kevin McCullum, the former rugby columnist of JHB’S The Star and now a SARFU Media advisor.
Interesting
7 Dec 2009, 10:46 am
pdv why you think them cats is hating on you? Cos they mans didn’t get the J.0
who, heyneke meyer?
You said it, not me!
7 Dec 2009, 10:46 am
@wallabie.:
@Hondo:
Simon did it.
He’s practising for his new appointment at Die SON.
7 Dec 2009, 10:46 am
This was an interrogation and if I was PDV I would have walked out after the first question.
what gives this pea brain interviewer the right to question someones own ability when they themselves cant do their job properly.
Shameful!!
7 Dec 2009, 10:47 am
I don’t understand what the point of the last question was?
7 Dec 2009, 10:47 am
@skopskiet: you said it, not me!. Seriously Skop, take a deep breath and just chill… no need to add fuel to the garbage some people are already spewing…
@wallabie.: you said it,not me!
7 Dec 2009, 10:47 am
“Do people you know expect more from you? Do they ever come and ask you for money to help them buy a car or pay off a loan?
No, do I look like a charity?
What the hell kind of a question is this.
Along with all the others.
My moer is already stooting this morning.
I’ve just been pushed over the edge.
7 Dec 2009, 10:51 am
This interviewer comes across as ignorant and arrogant. regardless how th show is being run the Boks are producing the results.
Much better than Jake White outside the RWC.
I would suggest this thread is removed.
7 Dec 2009, 10:51 am
@Dawn:
That’s #2 option, however, our Simon isn’t so knowledgeable in the art of PR, articulated PC, liberal writing of the The Star’s mold.
The stenogram is too meticulous and too professional to be Simon’s, I’d say it’s Kevin
7 Dec 2009, 10:52 am
This whole thing is such kuk.
I’m going over to the Keoling office and blow it up.
I know where they are.
7 Dec 2009, 10:53 am
@wallabie.:
Exactly Wallabie…then the press wonder why he dislikes them…IMO he actually put up with quite a bit of BS from his own press and he has handled it quite well recently.
Most of those questions are absolutely rubbish and they are there to bait the man.
7 Dec 2009, 10:53 am
These questions comes across as ‘you are just the tea boy you obviously couldnt have got these results’.
This is really shameful and I am surprised Keo allowed this to be put up.
This was a human being denigrating another!!
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