Rugby World Cup 2015 will forever be etched into Springbok supporters’ minds as the year the mighty Springboks lost to world rugby minnows – Japan. It was one of the lowest points that South African rugby had plummeted to since 2003’s well documented Kamp Staaldraad, a ‘boot camp’ organised as a ‘team building‘ exercise for the South African national rugby team,. As a team and a nation, we managed to move on from Kamp Staaldraad to win the Rugby World Cup in 2007 but what followed that terrible evening in Brighton when we lost to Japan was many years of pain. Heyneke Meyer, the Springboks coach at the 2015 Rugby World Cup was replaced by Allister Coetzee in 2016. During the two years that Coetzee was in charge his record as Bok coach reads poorly…– played 25, won 11, drawn 2 and lost 12 for a win ratio of just 44%. By the 02 February 2018, Coetzee was sacked as head coach of the Springboks. His departure was followed by the appointment of Rassie Erasmus.

Today, we are all still basking in the euphoria of South Africa’s latest triumph, masterminded by Erasmus with his captain, Siya Kolisi, leading the charge. It took Erasmus 20 months to take a team plummeting to their lowest world rugby ranking to number one and champions of the world. How he managed it was through a very simple game plan, focusing on the strengths available to him as coach and not playing a brand of rugby suited to his players. I am keeping it brief for the purpose of my available space. But there is a lot South African business can learn from Erasmus and his captain. He took over the reins of the Boks with the same political pressure as the coaches before him, the same players, the same opponents, in fact very little was in Erasmus’ favour. But he got the players to believe in his plan, his vision and he created a unit with a common goal. As an industry facing some of the toughest challenges since the start of democratic South Africa, we have a lot to learn from Erasmus and Siya. What are our common goals? How do we band together? If Erasmus can turn the Springboks around in 20 months, surely, we as an industry can start working to turn our own fortunes around, but it has to start as a collective – and we have to start today.