Heyneke Meyer. With all the mystery of a FIFA presidential election, SA Rugby’s worst kept secret gets revealed today to the SA public. After months of speculation over who would get the job from 4-year care taker coach P Divvy, Meyer has become the last man standing.

Hey Heyneke, we're ready for you now.

The natural and deserved successor to Jake White four years ago until SARU went affirmative on his ass, Meyer takes charge at an interesting cross roads in Springbok rugby. Let’s have a look then at what his first year in charge holds.

First up, high 5 P Divvy and make sure he returns all the keys, company stationary and whatever else may link him to the job. Give the office a repaint even, new era, let’s get rid of all traces of the old one please.

Pleasantries done. he will then have to watch the Super 15 like a hawk straight away picking up on every piece of action for traces of brilliance. My personal suggestion, play one of the fantasy league games and enter TheBounce’s SuperBru Pool (code: apexpeer) to stay on top of everything.

Next up, drop the crazy talk. Seriously, bringing Victor Matfield back from retirement and saying Pierre Spies has real leadership skills. This all sounds a little too P Divvy’ish Heyneke. We had enough crazy the last four years so please leave yours at reception along with Jake White’s hate mail and P Divvy’s please call me messages. Having to see Victor’s wife and kids at every media/post match ceremony aside, bringing him back is a stupid idea and hardly associates the word ‘positive’ to the beginning of your tenure. As for the Spies thing – well the only way I can see this being a good idea is if USN becomes the title sponsor of the Boks and they stipulate in their contracts that all press conferences should be shirtless and SARU are looking to increase female viewership.

Pierre Spies - a rugby player from the school of Gary Player.

So, that little rant aside, I’m pretty excited about the Boks having a coach again. Like everyone else, Meyer sure has his flaws and critics but I think his outlook on the game is just what the Boks need right now. Whereas the last coach attracted words like; unpredictable, colourful, conversational and bloody ridiculous – Meyer on the other hand is associated with; astute, calculated, progressive and successful. All we need to do now is sit back and see what he can do with the top job.

The main challenge that he has is that he will kinda need to rebuild the core of the team which has moved on since the World Cup. He will no doubt have a few players in mind, but this Super 15 is going to be key for him to formulate his master plan. How and when he looks to implement it is an interesting thought as he has quite the fixture list ahead of him this year:

Springboks 2012 Fixture List

June 2012
9 South Africa v England Mr Price Kings Park, Durban
16 South Africa v England Coca Cola Park, Johannesburg
23 South Africa v England Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth
August 2012
18 South Africa v Argentina DHL Newlands, Cape Town
25 Argentina v South Africa Malvinas Argentinas Stadium, Mendoza
September 2012
8 Australia v South Africa Subiaco Oval, Perth
15 New Zealand v South Africa Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin
29 South Africa v Australia Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria
October 2012
6 South Africa v New Zealand FNB Stadium, Soweto
November 2012
10 Ireland v South Africa AVIVA Stadium, Dublin
17 Scotland v South Africa Murrayfield, Edinburgh
24 England v South Africa Twickenham Stadium, London

2012 fixture list - massive challenges.

The English incoming tour will be his first chance to try out his chargers as a unit and will provide a huge test as success in this series is obviously expected. How he manages players and indeed their Super 15 teams is a massive challenge too as these Tests are of course being played during that bloated tournament. When it eventually ends the extended Rugby Championship kicks off with 6 tough games across the entire length of the bottom half of the earth. The Boks will naturally not be favourites in this one, but winning the home games will again be expected.

Once passed that section of the year, Heyneke will then see who is still standing after 8 months of rugby and then head off to mud island for three further Tests. Will he have freedom to try some promising youngsters to add to the players he has backed so far in the year? Probably not, but this is the interesting thing about this new era, will we be able to put egos and stupidity behind and learn from the past? Again this is where I feel Heyneke is a good call as coach as he will no doubt be more than capable of making the right calls here.

To say anything more would be to speculate unnecessarily. After the Super 15 has got going properly we can start talking about likely Bok selections and go deeper into players then, but for now I simply wish Heyneke Meyer nothing but the best in his new job. I have loads of faith in him, but like all coaches prior to P Divvy, the faith in the coach is not really the issue, it is whether or not SARU can actually not cock things up off the pitch which is something they are amazingly talented at.

Put it away Div, he isn't going to need it.

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