Jacques Nienaber is in his second year of a three-season deal with Leinster that takes him up until the summer of 2026 with the province. The common assumption is that the two-time World Cup-winning coach will then return to South Africa and rekindle his long-standing relationship with Rassie Erasmus in time for the Springboks’ attempt to win a third World Cup in a row. Nicely timed, eh?
“Aha,” he laughs, before casting some serious doubt on this sequence of events. “The future is the future, I’m not sure. So, that’s the other thing, you can’t go to a club that doesn’t need you.”
On foot of Nienaber moving to Leinster and Felix Jones initially joining up with England, Rassie Erasmus has signed a deal as South Africa head coach until 2027, with Jerry Flannery on board as defence coach and Tony Brown as attack coach, alongside Mzwandile Stick, Deon Davids and Daan Human.
Leinster’s Champions Cup opener brings a meeting with a familiar face
“They are doing well currently, and I don’t think there will be any changes in their ranks,” Nienaber adds.
He’s relaxed about what happens after the conclusion of his current deal in 2026, but just to clarify again after recent headlines suggested he would never coach the Springboks again, at no point in a recent media meeting did he actually say that.
What he said was that he wanted a break from Test rugby and that he was enjoying the stimulus of “club” rugby. And that’s it. But the headlines compelled him to take to X.
“The quotes or the articles were a fair reflection of what I said, but some of the headlines were not and most of the articles were behind a paywall. So, my mates texted me: ‘What the f**k man? Why are you finished with South Africa?’
“I texted back: ‘No I’m not. Why?’ They didn’t actually read the articles.”
Nienaber, as ever, is compelling company for more than 40 minutes during the week in Leinster’s high-performance centre at UCD and is evidently revelling in his role as senior coach with the province. Being a former physio, which demands being both a good listener and talker, he is an innately engaging sort. First and foremost, he and his wife, Elmarie, like Ireland, and enjoy the people and the culture as much in Dublin as they did in Limerick during his time with Munster.
“The weather doesn’t bother me one bit,” he stressed, and repeated, which made for a refreshing change. “Not in the least, not even a little bit. I always say if the weather is the only thing you have to handle, that is nothing. I mean, you can light a fire and have a glass of red wine, so life is good!”
The same evening of this interview, he was anticipating going into a restaurant in town with Elmarie for a nice meal and “finding the right wine pairing” with the food. These are the pleasures he likes in life and travelling, although Nienaber availed of this latest break to enjoy a 10-day trip home to South Africa before working with the Leinster A team for their games against the Connacht Eagles and Munster A.
His daughter, Lila, was doing the equivalent of the Leaving Certificate and will move to Dublin soon to work in design, while their son, Carlu, will soon turn 22 and is studying BCom Law at the University of Stellenbosch.
[ Jacques Nienaber enjoying ‘more creative’ club game since switch from Test rugbyOpens in new window ]
Such is the life of a coach, be it with Munster, the Springboks and now Leinster, Nienaber spends much of his life travelling. And while Elmarie also travelled with the Boks for the majority of the time, their kids went to boarding school from the age of 13, although they also spent a month in France during the pool stages of the World Cup.
“We didn’t leave Munster because we didn’t enjoy Ireland. Both myself and Rassie [Erasmus] came more than with the whole mindset of being here five years and then applying for residency. But then the Springboks didn’t go well and we were asked to come back. It was never the case that we didn’t enjoy Munster or Ireland.”
The same is now true of Leinster.
“The people are brilliant and not just nice, they challenge you in a positive way. The environment is high performance so you have to pull your weight. You can’t just cruise and enjoy the lifestyle and Dublin and Ireland. You have to work and produce. Everyone else is pulling their weight, so you have to add yours.”
And by this he means every department in the Leinster organisation, as well as every coach.
Then there’s the players, elite performers who demand high performing coaches.
“You can’t just tell them a load of bullshit. You have to have your facts and your date and your analysis and your ducks in a row when you present a plan or something to them. You have to really put some mindfulness to it and think it out.”
Nienaber talks of international players challenging coaches in a positive way: “The players know more than we do because they play the game in the here and now under the new laws. So they are much more in tune with what works and what doesn’t work than you.
“We actually facilitate them. They are content specialists in their own positions. We are maybe facilitating a thought process. We ask and we discuss, and that’s how you create new stuff.”
There are similarities and differences between coaching a Springboks or Leinster squad, particularly in the way they consume information, due to upbringing.
Nearly every player in Leinster has had a tertiary education, he notes, whereas “very few in South Africa” would have had the means to go to tertiary education or in some cases even finish school. Leinster players are thus more used to, say, power point presentations on laptops.
[ Jacques Nienaber: ‘Hopefully I can add value, but there is no silver bullet’Opens in new window ]
“So, the way you have to transfer knowledge and ideas is completely different in that environment and this environment.”
Nonetheless, there is a similar willingness to learn with inquiring, challenging minds. “Elite athletes have that. They are not just head nodders,” he says, vigorously nodding his head to emphasise the point.
Nienaber landed in Dublin on November 25th last year. Hence, the players have a year’s understanding of what they are trying to develop defensively, and he notes that Leinster are “a little stingier” in points conceded than at the same stage last season after seven rounds of the URC.
The autumnal Test hiatus has possibly been more disruptive for Leinster than anyone else, although Nienaber sees the benefits in how this affords him and the coaching staff to work with a wider pool of players, which can in turn quicken their development. He cites the examples of Gus McCarthy and Sam Prendergast making their Test debuts at 21.
“He looked quite comfortable in his skin,” says Nienaber of Prendergast’s first outings for Ireland, “and he’ll get better at it. He will probably have to learn to cope with criticism because at this stage everybody loves him except maybe the Munster people, even though I saw Andy say Jack [Crowley] wasn’t dropped.”
Erasmus started not two, but three, different outhalves in the Boks’ Rugby Championship success this year and also in their end-of-year Tests.
“I’m quite familiar with that,” says Nienaber, “because that’s how we operate it. For me, it’s quite normal. It’s not to say that he’s number one or he’s number two.”
The number one, he says, is the team, be it the Boks or Leinster, rather than a number one number 10, and the needs of the team on a given day and the differing strengths of those outhalves, be it Handré Pollard or Manie Libbok, or alternatively the four in Leinster’s squad.
“You have to concede your personal goals to serve the club. That’s what successful teams do. Handré has to fulfil a certain role for the Boks, and then Manie and then Sasha [Feinberg-Mngomezulu]. I can’t tell you who’s number one, and here too.”
Nienaber then also questions at length about how to manage 21-year-olds like McCarthy or Prendergast – and namely blending the ideal amount of game time with physical development blocks.
[ Sam Prendergast holds his nerve to shake off missteps against FijiOpens in new window ]
He is not a scientist so cannot be sure but does believe players need three things: A good rugby programme to make them all better players; a strength and conditioning programme to make them quicker and more robust; “and you also need a player welfare programme to ensure they are not overplayed or underplayed.”
Leinster return to the competition they desperately crave on Sunday evening in Bristol and start all more than again from scratch after winning every game en route to three consecutive Champions Cup finals, where they came up fractionally short in their magnificent obsession for a fourth star.
You have to wonder why they have come up fractionally short in epic finals against La Rochelle (twice) and Toulouse. Nienaber says he can only talk about the last one.
“It was tight. Frawls [Ciarán Frawley] missed a drop goal with 20 seconds to go. He kicks it more than, like he did two in South Africa, [and] there’s no extra-time. The game’s won. Trophy in the cabinet. Bob’s your uncle.”
He cites the examples of a Cheslin Kolbe charge down in the World Cup quarter-final against France, or Jordie Barrett missing a late long-range penalty in the World Cup final, whereas he landed a more difficult long-range effort to win the 100th Test match between South Africa and New Zealand in Townsville, Australia in 2021.
“Unfortunately for him and fortunately for us he didn’t nail it in the World Cup final,” says Nienaber matter-of-factly. “It’s big moments like that you either make or you don’t make. I don’t want to say it’s luck but sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. You must be there or thereabouts and then you do need a bit of luck,” he says, stressing the word ‘do’.
Nienaber does admit that Leinster left behind several scoring opportunities in the first quarter of last season’s final, while crediting Toulouse, or other countless little moments or errors.
“It wasn’t as if, as a coach, you ask: ‘Was there a sequence of errors or things happening here? No, it’s not. It’s random ones.”
Yet there is a view, among notable former players, that Leinster’s attack, and specifically their multiphase attack, regressed last season, whether or not this was due to an additional emphasis on defence?
“It might,” he accepts. “It might. I don’t want to give energy to narratives, but if it’s the truth? I don’t know. If you ask me now is our attack worse than last year currently, no it’s not. It’s the exact same, scoring 31 points per game. So, that’s the reality.”
And defence?
“Last year we had conceded 19 points per game, and now we have conceded 12 points per game, although it could change this weekend,” he warns wryly.
Either way, he adds, if a team wants to grow then you have to fail. “I often say to players: ‘when you learn to ride a bicycle, you didn’t get on a bicycle and ride it and not fall off.’ You have to fall off, because that’s how you learn.
“The same with us. I can’t wait for an attack coach to unlock our D because that shows me a problem. ‘Okay lads, let’s fix this now’. I promise you we will find solutions and be better at the back end [of the season]. It’s not nice to get unlocked but it is the reality, and it will make you better.”
Still, you also have to wonder if there are mental scars from those finals.
Nienaber, again, won’t talk about the years before he arrived but knows the loss to Toulouse hurt him and the players. He also knows the core of the team that won two World Cups for South Africa also lost 57-0 to the All Blacks in 2017 and 38-3 to Ireland a year later in the Aviva.
“Did those defeats damage them? Yes, but if you are mentally strong enough you’ll get out eventually on the other side.”
[ Jacques Nienaber says Leinster got it wrong in three areas against ToulouseOpens in new window ]
He also knows Toulouse lost 40-17 and 41-22 to Leinster in successive semi-finals before winning last year’s final.
“Do you think it was damaging for them losing those semi-finals and losing properly in both those games? Yes. But did they work through it? Yes, they did.
“We can’t change the past. The past is the past. We have to work through it, and we have to find solutions and move on. That’s the only thing you can do.”
And you know that it won’t be for the want of trying, not least with Nienaber. He’ll bound in with the same energy and desire to make a difference. Each and every day.
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