Nick Evans: Where the Springboks have improved ‘massively’ and how the All Blacks could open them up
Springboks centre Jesse Kriel in action against the All Blacks and an inset of Nick Evans.
Even now, all these years later, Nick Evans remembers the moment. The final whistle in Pretoria, team captain Sean Fitzpatrick exhausted on all fours, pounding the turf in triumph with his right fist.
New Zealand had beaten the Springboks to clinch a first-ever series win on South African soil, a 33-26 victory sealed with a long-range drop goal from the inimitable Zinzan Brooke.
The All Blacks are New Zealand’s heroes
Back home in Auckland a 16-year-old schoolboy, who would himself one day become an All Black, jumped up and down in front of the television.
“The All Blacks are New Zealand’s heroes,” says Evans, who won 16 caps between 2004-07 and would have collected a whole lot more but for the presence of Dan Carter.
“We don’t have royalty. Yes, we have war and we’ve got Victoria Crosses and things like that, but we don’t have that kind of Churchill, back in the day, history around war.
“So the All Blacks, from the days of Dave Gallaher and the Invincibles through to the Incomparables of 1996 and on to our World Cup-winning teams, they are our heroes.
“You see it to this day, there’s huge respect for the Black jersey. The kids are in awe of whoever pulls it on.”
Evans recalls falling in love with rugby watching the 1987 World Cup “with my little All Black jersey on”, never thinking then that he would be a rugby player because he was quite small.
“But I was inspired to give it a go and, for sure, those guys in 1996 were heroes of mine,” he adds. “Watching them do what they did was unbelievable.”
South Africa are so strong
Evans is in Japan, half an hour’s train ride from downtown Tokyo, where he has brought his family to begin the next chapter of his coaching career.
After 18 years as an iconic player and coach at Harlequins he has left the heat of London for the rain of Fuchu where he will coach a Toshiba Brave Lupus attack which, until recently, featured fellow Kiwi No.10, Richie Mo’unga.
His three children have already enrolled in school and he and his wife, Sally, are busy adjusting to a new culture, language and life experience.
Some 8,500 miles from Johannesburg he might be, but his thoughts are firmly with Dave Rennie’s All Blacks as they prepare for Saturday’s series opener at Ellis Park.
“It’s going to be a hell of an occasion,” he says, remembering how he could not take his eyes off the series in ’96 when a team beaten by the Springboks in the World Cup final a year before edged the opener 23-19 in Durban then closed the deal at Loftus.
“South Africa at the moment are so strong. It seems it doesn’t matter who they put on the field, they’ve got a conveyor belt of people who know the plan, the game model, are unbelievably physical and turn up and do a job.”
Where the Springboks have massively improved
Evans, 45, expects the physicality to be off the scale, the breakdown huge, the set piece massively important. Yet, he believes “unstructured moments” can decide this blockbuster series.
“I see international rugby now where attack and D [defence] almost cancel each other out a little bit,” says the only Harlequin to win the English Premiership as a player and coach.
“It comes down to rugby ability and who wins the unstructured moments. If you can score a couple of tries from those moments you can then back your defence and set piece to close the game out.”
Evans adds: “I’ve got to give to South Africa credit, they’re massively improved in that area. They still thrive with their kicking game and set piece, but they have become a lot more dangerous around that unstructured style of footie which probably the French are leading in at the moment.
“It will be fascinating to see how they go against a New Zealand side that has shown, in parts, that it can really open up teams in unstructured moments.”
‘Everyone talks about Springboks set-piece, but they’ve grown’ – All Blacks coach
The Springboks have home advantage, the game is being played at altitude and Rassie Erasmus’ men have the psychological boost of inflicting on the All Blacks their heaviest-ever home defeat when last the sides met.
Evans reckons the Springboks are beatable but knows how big a task it will be for his countrymen to go from altitude to sea level to altitude and then on to the USA across four weekends.
“That schedule feels like the Old School days of Super Rugby,” says the former Highlanders and Blues star. “I remember when I was playing, we’d play the Hurricanes in Dunedin, fly to Canberra to play an Australian team, fly up and play the Bulls in Pretoria, fly down to Durban to play another South African team, then fly home and play the Crusaders on a Friday night.
“Oh my God, I didn’t know what day it was by the end. But what it did was build resilience and an ability to match the physicality because there was no other choice.”
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It was really tough to leave
Resilience is a quality Evans needed in his final year at Harlequins, as the club he so loves lost its way on and off the pitch.
“It was really tough to leave because there are some really good people in that building that I’ll miss terribly,” he says. “But it was probably the right time, both professionally and from a family point of view.
“It felt like the club was going in a different direction. I probably became a bit of a lone wolf – along with probably a few other people in the building – around what we felt the identity was.
“I had to fight my way a little bit internally around what I was doing and where I wanted to be. That’s fine. It was a really good learning experience for me. I learned a lot around that period.
“And it’s given me this opportunity to come to Toshiba and really dive into the identity, into the Japanese culture and what it’s about, and hopefully drive this team back to the top.
“I definitely had to do it at some point, I’m under no illusion about that. Rugby coaching can be pretty fickle at the best of times. I need to upskill myself and maybe progress as a head coach.”
Possible Harlequins return
On Evans’ final day at Quins, team boss Jason Gilmore told Planet Rugby he had “no doubt” the club legend would return to Twickenham Stoop in the top job.
“That’s not my decision,” Evans smiles. “Look, I certainly feel I know Quins inside out. I know the identity. I’ve been part of probably two resurrections of that identity and it certainly worked.
“I think it’s just more about getting the right people in the right positions to really understand and lead that identity.
“Maybe in the future they want to go that way again. If I feel I’ve got the experience to lead that, I’ll be more than happy to come back.”
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