Bernard Jackman: Leinster must get rid of Jacques Nienaber’s ‘stabilisers’ and double down on ‘phenomenal’ World Cup-winning coach
Leinster senior coach Bernard Jackman and former Ireland hooker Bernard Jackman.
Bernard Jackman has told Leinster to give Jacques Nienaber free rein to do what he wants with the side amid suggestions that his influence is being limited.
The Irish giants hired the double Rugby World Cup winner as a replacement for outgoing senior coach Stuart Lancaster in 2023.
Nienaber was tasked with bringing Investec Champions Cup glory to the province after missing out in three finals under Lancaster, but the South African has so far failed to deliver that success.
While he obviously has to take some of the blame, Jackman reckons that the 53-year-old hasn’t been given the authority that a person of his ability and experience should command.
Irish rugby ‘lucky to have’ Nienaber
“My understanding is that players value him, my understanding as well is the players maybe feel he hasn’t been given as much say in what’s happened, that’s just the narrative that’s coming out from the dressing room,” he said on the RTE Rugby podcast.
“You sign a double World Cup-winning coach and you don’t put stabilisers on him – they’re not an apprentice – and that’s the challenge.
“Obviously, Leo’s the head coach but the reality is that this team looks less like a Jacques Nienaber team than it did in the past.
“Now there’s another challenge we haven’t talked about; when your breakdown and your set-piece crumbles, your defence and everything else is going to break as well, so it’s not just the defence in isolation.
“But he’s a phenomenal coach, he has the power to motivate, he’s a winner. I’d like to hope he would get another year and that he feels valued. I hope he feels valued because we’re so lucky to have him here.
“I understand the debate around Leinster’s way of playing and all that stuff, but once you make that decision to sign him, I think you need to double down then and make everything based around that.”
Jackman ultimately doesn’t believe that this is currently a Nienaber-type team and that, throughout his tenure, Leinster have rarely resembled a side you would expect to see from the South African.
“The Leinster team I saw post-Six Nations last year for the Glasgow and Harlequins games [where they won 52-0 and 62-0 respectively], it wasn’t the same style of play that had been happening a little bit before that,” he said.
“His first pre-season post-Toulouse loss [in the 2024 Champions Cup final], I thought September, October, November and December, I know it didn’t please people on the eye, but that looked like the type of rugby I would expect a Jacques Nienaber-influenced team to play.
“Since then it’s been a little bit mixed.”
Nienaber’s bombshell comments
A significant amount of criticism has come Nienaber’s way this season and that culminated in a explosive press conference on Monday where he defended his methods and claimed that he didn’t feel ‘valued’ in Dublin.
“I thought it was a very strong argument,” Jackman added. “I think we would all love press conferences like that where there’s actually someone that has really strong opinions, is experienced, coherent and consistent in his message, and there’s respect there and you can go back and forth.
“From a Leinster point of view, do you want that out there? No, I don’t think you do. From above, Leinster will be very concerned about how their communications has kind of got a bit wild the last three or four press conferences, even post-match in Bordeaux.
“For us and the fans, it’s something to talk about. We’re not talking about the team now, so maybe that’s the plan.”
READ MORE: Opinion: Jacques Nienaber should walk if he truly believes bombshell claim
