South African rugby coach John Williams achieved his target of qualifying Namibia for the 2011 Rugby World Cup when they beat Tunisia 22-10 on November 28. Williams was appointed as Namibia’s national coach in April 2008 and in the ensuing 20 months shaped a formidable team that has now qualified for the international showpiece of world rugby. In the process Namibia created history by qualifying for their fourth successive World Cup and fifth World Cup in total.
After the euphoria died down however, the stark reality started to dawn that Namibia has yet to win a match at the World Cup while it has been drawn in an extremely tough group along with world champions South Africa. Wales, Fiji and Samoa.
Furthermore, Namibia will have to appoint a new coach after Williams resigned in November to take up a post with South African franchise the Falcons. (Williams subsequently agreed to continue assisting Namibia and will act as a technical advisor in the run up to the World Cup, while he will also accompany Namibia to the World Cup.)
In this interview with Namibia Sport editor, Helge Schutz, Williams underlined the hard work that lies ahead but said that with sound planning, continuity and a positive mindset, Namibia could break its winless streak in 2011.
What were the main obstacles during your time in Namibia?
The amateur rugby setup in Namibia is a big problem. Half the national team consists of professional players abroad, and to try and get them to come to Namibia to play trials is absurd. They are contracted to their clubs and the only time they can be released is during the IRB’s window periods in June and November. I think the Namibia Sport Commission needs to reconsider this law.
The availability of the local players is another problem. The players need to work, so they have a gym session from 05h00 to 07h00, then go to work, and come back for another gym session after 17h00. Everyone within the IRB is progressing and Namibia also needs to progress. We need our guys to be conditioned correctly to play the game. You can’t run 3km every day and think you are good enough. At the 2007 World Cup, the professional players were carrying the team, but by the third game they couldn’t take the hits anymore. So ultimately, your amateur players need to have a continuous conditioning programme to get to the same level.
But that is the other problem. Despite the fact that they are amateurs, they are also not conditioned correctly or conditioned well for that matter. You will find that the player who does well at club level doesn’t feel that he needs to do proper conditioning, because he thinks that he’s already better than the other players, but we need to change that mindset.
I must however add that there has been a mindshift within certain players. They have come to the gym and they have realised that they need to better themselves and condition themselves, but it is only a handful, it needs to happen throughout the whole club structure.
The other problem is that the rugby within the club structure is not on a par, it’s not strong enough to maintain a high level of rugby. For instance, you will find that Jaguars lose a game 103-0. Now that’s a Premier League team, but you can’t have those kind of results within the elite competition.
Now that Namibia has qualified for the World Cup what matches will lie in store for the national team?
Namibia will play against Russia in Windhoek on January 23 and against Italy in Windhoek in June. I think Samoa are also touring South Africa so they might come here as well. Now that Namibia has qualified for the World Cup they will also get an invitation to the Cup of Nations tournament for emerging nations which was held in Romania in the past.
The Vodacom Cup for the local players will make a big difference if the players continue on their conditioning programmes and play competitive rugby. But they will see that if you play the Blue Bulls U21’s and you lose, you are not even better than U21’s at that stage. You are not even playing second or third teams, but the U21 teams. So that is the mindshift that needs to be fostered within the players. They need to realise that they need to work harder to achieve an average result, not even a good result, just an average result.
Namibia will be in a very tough group at the World Cup against the world champions South Africa, Wales, Fiji and Samoa. Do you think its possible to beat any of these nations?
Anything is possible. As long as you believe that you can achieve it, I honestly believe that. Even when we went to the 2007 World Cup I believed and I told the players that we would beat Ireland. We now have two years to analyse a team and I can guarantee you now that when the World Cup starts, Wales will not be the dominant force that it is now. Fiji and Samoa neither. There are simple reasons – you need to get to a high and then you must come down again. South Africa has been on a high and now you will find that they will level out and maybe pick up again before the World Cup.
That said, when you do play South Africa or Wales, they never put their top players against you because they always consider that game as a given. But if you can still be competitive by halftime and you know what they are going to do, and you target players, you might find the score is 20-13 or something like that, then there will always be a possibility of that team losing. Because once you lose the momentum, you cannot pick it up again, it doesn’t matter what players you have got.
We could see it in the game when South Africa played Saracens. If you lose the momentum and the players can’t get their moves executed correctly, then there is always an opportunity and I firmly believe that Wales can be beaten at the World Cup and even South Africa.
What advice do you have for the incoming coach?
The main thing that the new coach will have to understand is that you need to have continuity. For too long coaches have come and gone and each coach comes and does his own thing and lasts for three or six months or maybe a year. Then he leaves and the players have to start all over again with a new coach and a new game plan. They must just keep continuity – I’m not saying play the same way that I played, but keep a certain amount of the game the same.
Luckily they will have the Vodacom Cup to start preparing but if there are changes, they should be made systematically. You can’t just come in and change everything and expect results. But what you can do is keep continuity and make gradual systematic changes. You can see it worked perfectly at the Blue Bulls. When Heinecke Meyer left, Frans Ludeke came in and he kept the continuity within the team. He played the same way, because the two coaches knew each other, and he systematically changed a thing here and there. Pieter de Villiers did the same thing with the Springboks.
When he came in he got his senior players and told them, listen here, we will play the same way but out of the ten things, I want to change two things. And then a few months later when those two things were perfected he changed two more things and so on. And that is the main thing. The players don’t want to come into a system and start all over again. So as long as you keep continuity and you systematically change things you will get there.
Who do you think should be the new coach?
Johan Diergaardt has been groomed to take over the job and the only difference is that I’m leaving earlier than I was originally supposed to leave. But I do believe that he has got the ability and capability to do the job. He has also been bought into the whole process of what I have done and the way I’m trying to do it. Especially if you look at the main factor of continuity that would be a good choice to actually have him take over and then for him to systematically change the way that he wants to do it.
He also knows the local players and he’s been with me all the time. He was a selector in previous years so I do believe its time for a Namibian who is qualified and capable to take over. No one will ever have the experience. But you never go into a job and have the experience – you need to pick it up as you go along. If the NRU appoints him for a certain period and they stick by him and support him, then of course he will get results.
Why did you resign?
It’s not solely because I got the new job that I resigned, there were other factors as well, while I also had other offers which I declined. One of the main things is that there is not enough rugby here to keep an outside professional coach busy. I mean, the Tunisian match was only the fifth test of the year and that is just not enough. Most of the time I’m sitting here doing paper work and as a coach you lose certain skills. You need to coach every week. Back in South Africa I will coach every week and every day and you need that to keep you sharp and to make your decision making better and so on.
I’ve really enjoyed my time here in Namibia - it’s a great country. I would have preferred to stay but unfortunately that’s not possible. But I’m looking forward to the new challenge.
Do you think you could coach the Springboks one day?
Well, you need to be positioned correctly and at this stage I’m not positioned correctly for bigger jobs. So I need to establish myself now in South Africa as a coach and have some successes and then at the end of the next World Cup who knows what will happen.