JOHAN Diergaardt has been appointed as the national rugby coach following the departure of John Williams.
At a press conference in Windhoek on Friday, the president of the Namibia Rugby Union, Buks Bock, said that Diergaardt was appointed as from December 1 to take over from outgoing coach John Williams.Diergaardt has been assistant coach to Williams for the past two years. There was talk that the International Rugby Board would second a coach to Namibia following their qualification for the World Cup, but according to Bock, this would not be the case any more.’It was always the NRU’s prerogative to decide who we will appoint as the new coach. We liaised with the IRB and we managed to come to an amicable solution,’ he said.Bock added that Williams, who took up an offer with South African franchise the Falcons, would assist Diergaardt as technical advisor for the 2011 World Cup.’We made an offer to John Williams which we believe is a just reward for what he has done for our team. He will join the team a month before the World Cup and accompany them to New Zealand. Whether he is here more often will depend on his availability from the Falcons,’ he said.Bock said that Diergaardt would have the prerogative to decide whether he needed more assistants or not.Diergaardt thanked the NRU for their faith in him and paid tribute to the legacy that he had left for Namibian rugby.’I believe John Williams left big shoes to be filled. He was a great leader and had a great management team. We will miss him but now we must carry on with the legacy that he left behind. We must stay humble and the hard work will only start now, but if I look at how hard the players have been working under our conditioning coach Ewert Smit, then I am confident about our future,’ he said.Bock said that Smit would continue as the conditioning coach, while it was up to Diergaardt whether he needed any additional coaches.’Johan must decide whether he needs an additional forward coach or not. Hakkies Huselmann has been the backline coach, but we will have to see if he will be available, because his job has clashed with his coaching duties and we need to have permanent coaches. Hakkies gave us some options of future cooperation that we are looking at,’ Bock said.Diergaardt meanwhile confirmed that Namibia will have a busy year ahead.They take on Russia in a friendly international match in Windhoek on January 23, to be followed by a match against Blue Bulls B in early February.Namibia’s campaign in the Vodacom Cup starts with a home match against the Griffons on February 27, while the tournament will continue through to May.In June Namibia will compete in the IRB Nations Cup competition in Romania, while the year will be rounded off with a European tour in November when Namibia will play three or four tests against European nations like Spain, Portugal and Belgium.- Namibia Sport
