Jacques Nienaber praises ‘next level’ ex-Springboks coach that helped spark England renaissance

Jacques Nienaber hailed Felix Jones’ influence on the Springboks set-up and is not surprised by how he has adapted to his new position with England.

The Irishman joined the Boks ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup and played a big role in them going back-to-back at successive global tournaments.

South Africa lifted the Webb Ellis Cup in both 2019 and 2023, with Jones taking charge of the attack.

He has since left the world champions for England where he is attempting to revolutionise the Red Rose defence.

‘Full-on attack’

“I’ve never experienced him as a defence coach, he was attack coach for South Africa,” Nienaber told the Irish Mirror.

“In South Africa in our set-up for the last Rugby World Cup he didn’t coach defence at all, he was a full-on attack. He was only involved with the attack.

“I didn’t speak with him during the Six Nations but I’ll probably meet up with him now afterwards.”

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England improved as the Six Nations went on, with the players very much beginning to understand their defensive responsibilities.

The Red Rose have shown a clear development during the recent tournament but Nienaber is not taking any credit for Jones’ success.

“The first thing was his preparation and his work ethic was next level, he made sure that the players were prepared and knew what was coming up,” the ex-Boks boss said.

“I don’t want to give too much away but I think when he came in, in 2019, he only literally joined us in the World Cup, so he met us when we played the warm up game against Japan.

“So the lads didn’t know him, he just did the World Cup with us and, obviously, we had a win there.

“And then after that, Covid happened and then British and Irish Lions in 2021, for which we probably went a couple of steps back, because we wanted to beat the British and Irish Lions.”

Influence in 2022 and 2023

While most people consider the Springboks’ strengths to be their set-piece and defence, Nienaber felt that their work in attack played a key role in their recent World Cup success.

Jones was only really given license to have a real influence following their 2021 British and Irish Lions triumph and Nienaber felt it could be seen in 2022 and 2023.

“I would probably say Felix, in reality, took charge of our attack in 2022, that was when he could actually start being creative in the things that he wanted to do on attack,” he added.

“I thought by the back end of 2023 there was a lot of creativity, which people probably wouldn’t have seen but if you think now on the quarter-final of the World Cup, South Africa taking a quick tap-penalty is probably something unheard of.

“For our last try, Eben Etzebeth’s score that actually won us the quarter-final against France, I think there’s a lot of innovation that he brought in there.”

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