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The Southern Kings’ search for a head coach to replace Deon Davids looks destined to play second fiddle to the political infighting and backroom squabbles that are bedevilling the Pro14 franchise.
The deadline for applications is tomorrow, but the Kings’ hierarchy find themselves having to not only sift through a mountain of CVs (apparently between 45 and 50 so far), but also work out how to discipline one of their own in the aftermath of a staggering F-word-laden Facebook tirade by board member and Eastern Province deputy president Bantwini Matika.
Loyiso Dotwana, Kings’ chairperson, this week said the board would convene to decide what to do with Matika after he broke rank and labelled former Springbok coach Nick Mallett a racist after he found out that he would be part of the panel to decide on the new coach.
“As a board member, I don’t think it’s true that we need racist Mallett to find a suitable coach for our team,” read Matika’s post. “Mallett is not suitable to help us find a coach who will be dedicated to building a totally transformed Kings team.
“Mallett will never support our transformation and is therefore ill-equipped to choose an appropriate coach for the Kings.”
Matika had said the worst that could happen to him regarding his rant was that he’d be booted out of the Kings board, and if Dotwana’s response is anything to go by, that may well be the case.
“We disassociate ourselves from that statement,” Dotwana said on Friday.
“We find it totally unacceptable and Bantwini’s post does not reflect the views of the Kings nor its board. This is quite an unfortunate incident, and we’re dealing with it internally. We are going to have a meeting as a board early next [this] week to address this matter and deal with it.”
This is not the first time that the goings on at boardroom level at the Kings have been “broken” on social media before the meetings have even concluded, which begs the question as to the relationship between the franchise and its EP Elephants partners.
Dotwana said Matika’s views on Mallett’s presence on the panel to decide who the coach would be, which he declined to name as the board still had to ratify it, would not result in the former Bok coach’s removal. Robbie Kempson, the Kings’ director of rugby, said the franchise had received almost 50 CVs by Friday from all over the world.
“There’s no Warren Gatland, but we’ve received quite a decent couple of CVs from the UK, one from Ireland, Australia, the Georgia head coach [Milton Haig] and some New Zealanders.”
Asked if former Springbok coach Peter de Villiers, former Cheetahs coach Rory Duncan and Fiji national coach John McGee had applied as rumoured, he affirmed the first, said Duncan hadn’t “applied as yet” and that the New Zealander had definitely thrown his hat into the ring.
Kempson said he wasn’t sure when the search for the coach would conclude: “We’re waiting for the board to give us direction ... we’d like to do it by the end of July, but I doubt it’ll happen. But we would like to get a coach in place sooner rather than later – after we’ve gone through due process.”
Asked if the announcement of former Lions conditioning coach Wayne Taylor was a sign that they would be pursuing a fellow New Zealander as head coach, what with the Kings known to be hoping their new coach would be a Kiwi, Kempson said this was not necessarily the case.
“Not at all. All we needed was an international class conditioning coach ... there are things you can fix in a team, one is conditioning and the other is defence. There’s no question that our conditioning has been a concern – I got ‘Tails’ for his track record in producing international athletes.”
