SA Rugby has confirmed changes to the coaching line-up of its national teams, in a bid to emulate the success enjoyed by the Springboks.
Former Springbok coaching consultant Swys de Bruin and former Springbok Sevens captain Kevin Foote have been appointed to coach the Springbok Women and Junior Springboks respectively, while Bafana Nhleko has been redeployed from the SA U20s to the senior women’s fifteens team.
Rian Oberholzer, SA Rugby’s CEO, said the changes were part of the restructuring process of SA Rugby’s High-Performance Department, as they aim to achieve specific targets as part of a four-year strategic plan.
“We have obviously targeted winning the Rugby World Cup in 2027 for the Springboks, but we also have goals for other national teams,” said Oberholzer. “We expect to see the Junior Boks winning the World Rugby U20 Championship at least once in a three-year period, for the Springbok Women to climb the world rankings to be in the top eight, and the Blitzboks to consistently medal at major events.”
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De Bruin has been appointed as Performance Coach in a new-look Springbok Women coaching team, until the Women’s Rugby World Cup in England in September 2025, along with Nhleko, as well as current Springbok Women assistant coaches Franzel September and Laurian Johannes-Haupt.
Foote will return to South Africa after more than a decade of coaching in Australia, where his most recent position was as head coach of Super Rugby side the Melbourne Rebels.
The Springbok Women are currently ranked 12th in the world, the Junior Boks finished a seventh in the World Rugby U20 Championship earlier this season, while the Blitzboks only qualified for the Olympics through a repechage play-off.
“We expect our national teams to deliver more consistent performances and as such, we started a restructuring process that is part of a significant overhaul of the High-Performance Department,” said Oberholzer. “The Springboks carry the torch and do very well, but we need to see improvements from all our other national teams, including the Junior Boks, Blitzboks and women’s teams. As part of this drive, we appointed Dave Wessels as General Manager to oversee the process of restructuring our high-performance teams and these appointments are the first steps in the process. Dave joined us in March and has been working hard with all the relevant role players to see where we’ve fallen short and what we can do to ensure we provide all our national teams with what is necessary to be successful. More appointments will be made in due course.”
Foote, meanwhile, will take over the Junior Springbok reins from Nhleko, who was SA U20 head coach for the last four seasons and agreed last year to join SA Rugby’s mobi-unit. Lumumba Currie will remain as SA U20 assistant coach.
