Nienaber: The key ingredient that helped Boks win World Cup

The Boks achieved history last year when they claimed a record fourth World Cup title, while retaining the trophy they famously won in 2019 under Rassie Erasmus and Siya Kolisi.

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Jacques Nienaber has also been a crucial member of the coaching staff over the last four years, which included a British & Irish Lions series win to go with the World Cup successes.

Speaking on The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast, Nienaber suggested that the policy to allow players to ply their trade overseas has been a key ingredient.

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Boks have benefited

“I don’t think we have the monetary strength to pay our players the value that they are valued at. If you look at the squad that we took, it’s about half and half,” Nienaber commented.

“About 15 or 16 players were plying their trade abroad and 15 or 16 plied their trade in South Africa. Those guys abroad, I don’t know what their salaries are, but if they were in South Africa there’s no way we would be able to pay them.

“I do think it’s good for us they go abroad, they play there and then you can still select them if they’re good enough.

“That really helped us win two World Cups. It works for us. If you think about the locks, Eben (Etzebeth) was with the Sharks but he was abroad in 2019, then you have Franco Mostert, who’s abroad, you have RG (Snyman) and Jean Kleyn, who’s abroad.”

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Selection policy

Nienaber also provided interesting insight into how they went about their player selections.

“The most important thing is to get the right people, not necessarily the best. When we do select the squad there’s probably players that are better than the ones we select in our squad, who are performing better, but the key thing is that they must be the right people for the environment,” he added.

“That’s why we sometimes get criticised selecting a squad; ‘yes this guy is on form and he’s far better than this guy.’ You know what, the public are knowledgeable in South Africa, they are completely right, but sometimes that guy is not the right guy.”

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