The South Africans arrived in Cardiff on Sunday night to start what will be a tough last week of the international year as they build up to the match against Wales at the Millennium Stadium headed by a coach who, if the media and public sentiment is correct, can effectively be described as a dead man walking.
Just like the defeat to Japan at the start of the last World Cup was the death-knell to Heyneke Meyer’s chances of continuing as Bok coach if his team didn’t actually win the tournament, so the abject 20-18 loss to Italy in Florence this past weekend should have been the coup de grace to any chance of Allister Coetzee continuing in the job.
A record of just four wins, none of them with convincing performances, in 11 starts isn’t good enough and what has been most disturbing from a South African viewpoint has been the way the Boks have performed. They’ve appeared to lack a style identity throughout the international season and while there have been mitigating circumstances, as there always are with the incumbent in the most difficult coaching job in world rugby, the bottom line is that the Boks just haven’t looked like a well-coached team during Coetzee’s tenure.
The bottom line is that in professional sport, coaches are hired and fired on results, and regardless of whether the Boks beat Wales in Cardiff on Saturday, the South Africans will end up with the ignominious footnote from 2016 that it was a year they lost more than they won.
