Ex-Rebels boss favoured to take Junior Springboks role after horror U20 Championship campaign – report
Kevin Foote during his time with the Melbourne Rebels.
Former Melbourne Rebels head coach Kevin Foote is favoured to take over the reins of the South African U20 side as part of a coaching shuffle after a tough World Rugby U20 Championship, according to the Rapport.
The Junior Springboks limped to a seventh-place finish at the tournament hosted in South Africa over June/July after a mixed performance in the inaugural U20 Championship where they finished second.
Changing roles
Head coach for both those tournaments, Bafana Nhleko, is set to be replaced by Foote who up until the end of the Super Rugby Pacific season was the boss of the Melbourne Rebels. The club has since been axed after financial concerns.
Nhleko is still well respected and is set to take over the Women’s Springboks in a co-coaching capacity alongside Swys de Bruin. These appointments are awaiting approval but the duo is expected to succeed Louis Koen who stays in the structures of SARU.
No stranger
Foote himself is a South African and even represented the country in Rugby Sevens in eight tournaments in the early 2000s. The 45-year-old also coached the University of Cape Town Ikeys between 2011 and 2013, leading the side to their first Varsity Cup title.
This is not the only update in the SARU coaching structures with Philip Snyman set to be appointed as full-time head coach of the Blitzboks, this comes after he led the team to an impressive Bronze medal at the Olympics as the interim boss.
These changes are led by the head of rugby Dave Wessels, who stepped into the new role earlier this year, with former director of rugby Rassie Erasmus moving back into the hot seat as the Springboks head coach for the next Rugby World Cup cycle.