RUCK N ROLL
GAVIN RICH: Dysfunctional system is the root of the problem
Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Western Province president Thelo Wakefield held his crisis meeting with the Stormers coaches last week. On second thoughts maybe not, for it is likely not much was said or discussed. Wakefield’s public utterances struck me as the usual knee-jerk response at a time when the team is struggling from an elected official who relies on votes to keep him in his position. In other words, be seen by the media and the public to be doing something when in actual fact you aren’t able to do much. Nick Mallett summed it up in his forthright manner when I interviewed him a few years ago for a book I wrote on post-isolation Springbok coaches. Referring to "crisis" meetings of coaches that were called at junctures of the Ian McIntosh, Carel du Plessis and Jake White tenures when the national governing body was under pressure, Mallett said it was all really just a show. "The problem was that they [the presidents] had no idea why they had appointed the coaches in the f...
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