All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson and Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus.
Former Springboks coach Gary Gold believes that Leon MacDonald disagreed with Scott Robertson’s more conservative approach which led to their split last year.
In August 2024, just prior to leaving New Zealand for their two Rugby Championship games in South Africa, MacDonald surprisingly departed the set-up.
Robertson admitted that there were differences in their coaching philosophies, but it was not specified what they were.
Gold believes the answer lies in their respective approaches, with the 57-year-old believing that MacDonald wanted the All Blacks to be far more adventurous.
Robertson’s ‘Test match-based’ style
“I believe with the MacDonald and the Razor thing, Leon maybe wanted to play a lot more and Razor maybe wanted to play a more Test match-based game, which is a little bit more dependent on territory,” he told the Boks Office podcast.
MacDonald ultimately only lasted a few games in the role and Gold compared it to Rassie Erasmus’ relationship with Swys de Bruin.
De Bruin, whose Lions team played some spellbinding rugby, was hired as the Boks’ attack coach in 2018 but only lasted a year before he stepped down.
The 64-year-old later confirmed to News 24 that he and Erasmus had a “different outlook as far as game philosophy was concerned”.
Gold sees no issue with that, however, and insists that these so-called shock exits do not necessarily impact anyone involved providing the split is amicable.
“I know that’s happened with the Springboks. I think that happened with Franco [Smith], I think it’s happened with Swys. I don’t see that as a drama, it’s different philosophies and that’s fine. That’s cool,” he added.
For the benefit of the players
Former Springboks boss Nick Mallett, who was also on the show, says that coaches will always argue over the direction of the team, but insists that they must eventually agree on a philosophy for the players’ sake.
If not then issues will occur, as shown by the All Blacks in 2024 and South Africa in 2019.
“You can have disagreements amongst yourselves as a coaching group but you must thrash out those disagreements in meetings prior to getting out in front of the players, and then you’ve got to buy in,” Mallett said.
“They’ve got to agree that this is the way they’ve got to play and back that mutual decision. If the head coach is democratic enough, he listens to opinions, but in the end he’s got to take the final decision.
“You’ve got to only get one message to the players.”
