Cape Town - After a highly promising junior career, Sandile Ngcobo inexplicably had had enough of rugby – so much so that he left the sport and began to work for a courier company at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg at the age of just 22.
Some 11 years later at 33, he is the new head coach of the Springbok Sevens team, taking over from Neil Powell, who had been involved with the Blitzboks for over 15 years as a player and coach.
“I’m extremely excited. It’s a bag of mixed emotions… from Coach Neil leaving us to the exciting news now to carry on this legacy and foundation that Coach Neil left us with. Really excited about it,” Ngcobo told Independent Media following his appointment this week.
“You aspire to be the best in the world, and that’s my personality – to strive for greatness all the time. So I’ve definitely been groomed and learnt a lot, and put in the hard yards day in and day out, to be positioned to give myself the best shot.”
Ngcobo played junior provincial rugby for the Lions as a scrum-half while at Highlands North Boys’ High School in Johannesburg, where he played for the Golden Lions Academy teams alongside fly-halves such as Elton Jantjies and Demetri Catrakilis.
That saw him earn a rugby bursary from the University of Johannesburg and a Lions contract, but he opted to stop playing soon after that, telling the SA Rugby website that the sport “brought me no joy” at that stage.
Fast-forward a few years, and the oval-ball game called on Ngcobo once more. A former junior coach of his, Martin Scheepers, asked him to come to trials for the University of the Witwatersrand’s first team – and soon enough he had done enough to earn a spot in the team.
And the rest is history. Ngcobo was quickly snapped up by the Valke provincial team and played over 30 matches for them, before Powell brought him into the SA Rugby Sevens Academy set-up.
Ngcobo made his Blitzboks debut in 2016, and eventually gradually moved into coaching with the academy, firstly as an assistant coach and then head coach.
So he feels he has done the hard yards to take over from Powell, with former captain Philip Snyman as his assistant coach.
The disappointing Blitzboks performance at the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Cape Town recently – where South Africa were knocked out in the quarter-finals by Ireland – was not the ideal manner for Powell to depart the sevens scene and move on to the Sharks as their director of rugby.
But it does represent Ngcobo with an opportunity to put his own stamp on the team, although he is not going to reinvent the Blitzbok wheel.
“I wouldn’t say different… We would add individuals that would bring a little bit more diversity, but the things that worked for us were our defensive processes. We looked to care of it at a higher level,” Ngcobo said.
“So, if anything, it is to build on the great foundation that was laid by Coach Neil and his team, and just bring different characters – so that we can’t be predictable. And that all boils down to a great academy system. Scouting by Marius Schoeman, and moulded down there, and that would give us more weapons to work with to put teams in trouble.
“I haven’t watched those (World Cup) games yet, to be honest with you – I will sit down and watch it attentively. But again, the whole season, we’ve been hit by injuries and we didn’t have a big selection pool.
“I will keep saying that: it’s very important for us to scout the right guys and have academy tournaments being played, so that the senior team can have consistency in performance – by having the right players.
“So, if I had to boil it down to one word, it’s consistency, in performance and the right individuals to do the job.”
Part of that process is to try and attract players from the United Rugby Championship franchises, as well as the academy conveyor belt.
The Blitzboks boast some wonderful playmakers such as Selvyn Davids and Ronald Brown, but also need to identify physical forwards to assist the likes of Zain Davids and Impi Visser ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
For now, though, the first major event for Ngcobo is the Hong Kong Sevens in early November.
“It’s something we talk about all the time. I scout with Marius Schoeman (SA Sevens high-performance manager), and it’s just about mending and moulding those relationships with the 15s guys,” the Blitzbok coach said.
“We don’t want to think that our system is the only system that does great things. We can learn from 15s teams. They possess players that can do the job for us as well. So a great relationship with the unions can assist the system to greater heights.
“That’s the beauty of this game – it keeps evolving every week… there is something new. It keeps you on your toes, to constantly think and come up with new strategies and get the best out of your players.
“One of the things we will add is just a different weapons… a variety that adds variation and a different approach.
“I have thought of (the Paris Olympics). But we don’t want to look too far. There are things that we need to discuss and focus on right now. And that is about implementing our roles and responsibilities.
“Firstly, get the hunger back. Get a few key individuals and add them into our group, and start implementing our processes. I think that will put us in a position where we can start adding on a new goal and a higher goal.
“If we have games next week, the goal is to implement the perfect plan and the perfect processes to our system, and build on towards Hong Kong (in November).”
@AshfakMohamed