Springboks boss reveals Duane Vermeulen’s new role at the Rugby World Cup

South Africa head coach Jacques Nienaber has explained why Duane Vermeulen was seen in the coaches box during their Rugby World Cup defeat to Ireland.

The number eight was sat alongside the Springboks brains trust during that loss to Andy Farrell’s men in Paris last Saturday.

According to Nienaber, Vermeulen is taking the “Francois Louw role” at this World Cup, where he is not necessarily a guaranteed starter but can provide expertise in other areas.

Different perspective

“I can’t say if he’s preparing for the future. It’s not the first time that we have had a player in the box,” the Springboks’ head coach said.

“It’s good for us as coaches to sometimes have a player [there], because they give us a different perspective of how our communication is within the team.

“They get a sense of the sometimes frustration that coaches are under in a coaches box. That grows them as a player.

“Our coaches’ meeting starts at seven in the morning – any player can join that.

“Let’s say it gets to something sensitive like team selection, we will excuse them from the meeting and have the internal discussion, but they are more than willing – from 2018 – to sit in coaches’ meeting as much as they want.

“Duane’s role; if you look back to 2019, the best way to describe it is a Francois Louw role. He’s a guy that can start, that can play a Test match for you, but he’s also a guy that’s got a lot of experience and he adds his wealth of knowledge into the group.

“Not saying that he can’t start. Look at Francois Louw, the contribution he made in that semi-final for us, to get a penalty in the 76th minute.

“Big moments, big roles, been there before – he’s [Vermeulen’s] probably in that mould, but if there’s an injury and he has to start and play the whole game, he’s more than fit and good enough to do that.”

Looking ahead to Tonga

South Africa are hoping to move a step closer to the quarter-finals when they take on Tonga in their final World Cup pool match on Sunday.

The disappointment from their 13-8 reversal at the hands of Ireland is still lingering for some, but Nienaber is keen to move on from that encounter.

“Let’s take the result out of the way – we all know that we need to get a win and a bonus point. So let’s park the result,” he said.

“We’ve got certain things that we have to rectify that we couldn’t get right against Ireland.

“In terms of our game plan, there are definitely some things that we will try a little bit differently in this game to see if it works.

“The result is very important but we need to fix that if we do get the opportunity to go into a quarter-final or knockout rugby. If we don’t fix those things we probably won’t last long in this competition.”

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