Exclusive: Kevin Foote on Shaping the Junior Springboks for World Rugby U20 Championship

The Junior Springboks have come short in several World Rugby events in recent years.

The Baby Boks, as they are affectionately called, finished seventh in last year’s World Rugby U20 Championship, which was hosted in Cape Town.

That outing resulted in a change of personnel as SA Rugby called upon the service of Kevin Foote to replace former coach, Bafana Nhleko. 

COMING INTO THE SYSTEM

There was a high level of expectations on Foote when he signed on the dotted line and agreed to be part of SA Rugby’s restructuring project.

Before he joined, the Baby Boks had all the talent but still failed to get over the line in crucial tournaments.

Foote landed on South African shores and hit the ground running. He started plotting for the year ahead with his assistants, Lumumba Currie and Melusi Mthethwa.

He organized and ran several camps where the management got a feel of the players at their disposal and saw the potential at hand.

After months of joining, he reflected on his time at the helm, and how it’s been after taking over the head coach role.

“I feel very grateful; I’ve got great staff around me, and I feel very well supported,” he told SportsBoom.co.za. 

“Coming back to see how well supported the programme is means a lot."

“From a coaching perspective, I think we have some good and experienced coaches, and we get to work with some talented players."

“I’ve had three camps now, and we’ve gone through 76 players—we wanted to see as many guys as we could."

“It’s been great to see how passionate guys are about the Springbok brand and playing for their country—it’s been an awesome induction for me.”

TOUR TO GEORGIA

Foote recently led the side to his first tour as head coach when they toured Georgia for a two-match test series against their u20 side.

The Junior Boks, despite not playing their best rugby, managed to win both games, 38-29 and 27-12, respectively.

The coach explained the idea behind touring Georgia just two months before the u20 Rugby Championship kicks off.

“The one thing I learned about the programme is that we’ve got a lot of talented players, great school programmes, but we just don’t play enough rugby leading up to the World Cup,” he revealed.

“One of our big focuses this year was to try and get games in. We played against Maties (Stellenbosch University) and Ikeys (University of Cape Town) before we left for Georgia."

“One of the main things was to just get game time, making sure guys get combinations together, play together, and allow everyone to play and see how the cohesion is between the team."

“The second objective was to go to a place where it’s pretty rare to see how we gel off the field. We also wanted to go there and put a marker with the set piece, our maul, lineouts and kick-offs, skill execution, and game management.”

EXPERIENCED COACHES IN THE CAMP

Aside from working with the likes of Currie and Mthethwa, Foote has been leaning on the experience of Johan Ackerman.

Ackerman was appointed by SA Rugby as a consultant coach with the responsibility of helping the junior side.

Foote insists his presence on the team has been rewarding.

“Johan is a very humble guy; first of all, he doesn’t come with any ego, which is incredible."

“He also acts as a second set of eyes from a head coaching perspective; he sees things in our programme that I might miss."

“He and I talk a lot—he’s also working close with Lubambo, and they’ve got a close working relationship, so he’s looking after our set piece."

“Technically, he’s excellent, very good for the energy of the management and group. He brings a calmness around how we want to play and how we want to behave, and I think that gives us a lot of confidence.”

RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP PLANS

The Junior Boks will enter this year’s u20 Rugby Championship to go all the way after a second-place finish in last year’s event.

The tournament will act as preparation for the World Rugby U20 Championship set to take place in June and July this year.

Foote says he’s happy with the current squad he has but admitted that certain players could play themselves into selection.

“We are very happy with the group that we have. We’ve got about a 45-men squad that we want to keep engaged together building up to the U20 Rugby World Cup."

“At the same time, there are guys who haven’t come into our programme yet."

JC Mars has had some injuries; JJ Theron has just recovered from injury, and there’s guys like Jaco Grobbelaar and Gino Cupido.

“The talent is unbelievable, but the guys who have been with us have already shown they are ready, so I feel like there could be some new faces."

“We’ll use the TRC to see how it goes and make sure by the time we get to the World Cup, we’ve sorted our combinations,” he ended.