The André Pretorius Story: "What I Want to be Remembered for"

Well, I just want to jump the gun a little bit here, but this is something that I've been dying to tell people. I enjoyed talking to him, and he said something to me which just showed me that it's not a case of him not liking me. And he said to me, you've got the ability to win matches that not a lot of players have. And he stopped the conversation. I also went through a stage in my career where I was a toxic teammate.

So I've been that player. Luckily, I had people that cared enough about me that said, listen, Peturz, this isn't you. I was so embarrassed with how I've handled the situation. That was the turning point for me in how I approached situations and my philosophy of understand and assist was born on that night. And I took this box and I filled it up with sand and I came walking.

Now that in itself was embarrassing, but it wasn't going to be as embarrassing as me saying, I forgot my time. And he still looked at me and he said, It's Kopier van Santaf. And I was thinking in my head, well, I do know. Now I'm kicking off sand. This is The Long Way to the Game, only on Megaphone Rugby.

Welcome back to The Long Way to the Game podcast, or as we call it, Long Way, with Paul Avanante. Today we've got a special guest. Someone who's been with me on this channel basically since the beginning, started out in Afrikaans. And then I sort of hesitated, hesitantly asked him, can we do it maybe in English? No problem whatsoever.

And he speaks better English than I do last night. actually forgot to speak english i started your english podcast in afrikaans believe it or not on a live one so there we go so i'm talking of course about andre petourius one of our technical gurus over here on this channel so we're going to be talking about his life and journey and rugby career and everything else so welcome andre thanks imbia thanks for having me thank you paul really look forward to this one hey andre uh i'm really excited to talk to you i have to admit up front you kind of know my story that i've been away from south africa for over 30 years and rugby has kind of pulled me back into South Africa and I'm spending more time in the country and just completely in love with rugby and the spring box but one of our fans or viewers last week in a comment called me the Yankee Yopi Rip Van Van Go because I've been gone and so I'm going to admit up front like first of all I love watching you and your deep analysis and thoughtful analysis but I never actually saw you play live in any game because it was the time when I was in America and most disconnected from rugby and so today is like my opportunity to fill in all the holes in my knowledge of you giving your career and how much you know about rugby so always remember that if I get something wrong it's because I'm a Yankee yoppy so I want to dive right in and ask you about the start of your career. I saw you started at Word School of Dynamica. It's not like a traditional rugby powerhouse in South Africa, in Alberton. And you were, if I'm correct, the first Springbok from that school.

Could you give us all sort of a high-level overview of your life and rugby journey that took you to the Springboks? Yes, in a way that set me up for what was to come. But at the time, it felt like it was more to the detriment of any aspirations. But I started playing rugby when I was normal age, six or seven. The first year that you could play rugby, I started playing.

I was always exposed to all types of sports with my dad and my family. So it was always going to be part of that. I was never in big schools. like you just said, Dynamica is not one of the schools you see on the top 100 schools or the rankings but I had a really good school life and I enjoyed my rugby I had good mates played first team never made Craven Week always got to some of the last ones and it was always the same thing, he's too small you kind of got used to it just walk away from that go to university played in the trials and immediately never got picked for any under 21a or under 19a side got moved down to the fourth side of uh of it was then called row and really enjoyed my rugby and because i was playing fourth side i could play for my residents now that's where you really enjoy your rugby because there's guys there that can play they don't actually want to play for the university so they ensure that they play fourth side so they can still play for their res and my first year we won the competition france ludico is coaching in in japan now with the boat spears he was our coach for the first year i was playing in res and the end of that year in in shelley beach i bumped into eugene yellow and he told me that he's going to take over the transvalon and 21 side And because I've gone through a whole year, I saw the boys play on TV. And you started thinking, these guys, you train against them.

You know, if you just get a chance. But it never really went any further than that until that day. And Lofi said to me that I'm going to be his number 10. But I have to play trials. And so the trials will be somewhere in January.

It was late in December, Paul. So I've not done any running. obviously i don't have to do a pre-season i'm playing our fourth side the next day nearly killed myself running in in hibberdine doing some hills and um so january comes comes around and first trials i i hurt my ankle and love still picked me for the for the transvalent 21 site and that's how i got my big break then um davis neiman we had a provincial under 21 competition to choose the s under 21 side and i got selected for the cats under 21 and um davis name and gave me an opportunity to play s under 21 and from there it jakov universitzen was the number one fly off and he got injured against australia so in australia against australia i i played 20 minutes and then in the third fourth playoff i played against new zealand last couple of minutes where i think we were two points two points ahead and i concede a penalty i go offside really kicks a kick and they go ahead we kick off i get the wall back and i slot a drop goal and we win the game and it feels like from there things kind of rolled a lot quicker coming back from that s under 21 campaign i got drafted into the lions side with laurie mains that's where i was standing in the queue doing a drill and james small and came and introduced himself to me which to me was you know it's one of my childhood heroes and something i'd never ever forget but he he was that type of person where you know i'm james how's the training going can i help you with anything and that that always stuck stuck with me and i thought when i'm when i get to play in this at that level i'd love to be that for whoever's whoever i'm playing with especially the young guys so yeah from i think from there that that was the the the turning point or the the tipping point for for my career and so you when you were playing in the fourth team at row at that point you kind of made peace with it that my rugby career is never you know i'm never going to play for the spring box or provincial or did you still at that point kind of have hope and you were working towards a bigger dream i'd love to tell you that no every night i sat down and i believed i was but i think the fact that i didn't have those those expectations made me enjoy my rugby my father got very very frustrated um i think that's something people didn't know but he got very frustrated he could see he knew the way i could play and where i was playing it was you know there was a higher level within within the capabilities but i never had those expectations i was enjoying the game too much and you know we we were doing really well on the fourth sides we were playing ranfantine and you know you you'd be beating them by 60 or 70 and while you kick it post, you know, the props decide they're not going to stand behind the post. They come walking between you and the ball to get ready for the next kickoff. So it's, there was a lot of fun stories about that.

And, you know, I always, I remember those, those games as well. It's, it's something that as a, as a young player, it did a lot for my confidence going forward because playing Ranfonteen at, you know, seven, eight o'clock at night on a Friday evening, those are tough games. Those are really tough games. But I wouldn't say I'd lost the aspiration. It wasn't my priority.

Because I was enjoying my rugby so much and because I was playing with my mates, I also do obsess about things a bit. So when I play golf, I research. When I fish, I research. When I play rugby, I want it to be as good as I can. It doesn't matter if it's beach touches or touches at the res.

I wanted to be the best that I could be. And I think that coupled with the low expectations at that stage kind of worked in my favor. At which point did it click in your head, oh, the wheel has turned and the opportunity is in front of me? When do you get your first notice of the senior Springbok team interested in you? Yeah, that's a really good question because my under 21 year wasn't really a you know it was it happened so suddenly i kicked the drop kick and and you know the name i put the name on the table and then the next year jake white actually didn't select me for the for the argentina tour he selected butch james and jakov universitas and i think your roots played a bit at 10 at some point as well so he was he wasn't a big fan of mine and i understand why because you know the other the other guys they were bigger and obviously defensively they were a lot more capable than I was.

But again, I was enjoying my rugby with the Lions. The Lions under-21 side, I cost Lofi the under-21 Curry Cup in 98 and then we went down to Durban and won the Cup in 99. So there was a lot of things on the way that kept me interested in that and But, you know, Eugene Yellof was a big part of that. But I think when after the 99 season, I was into the Lions. And when I started playing senior Lions, I started thinking this is what I want.

I want to be – you always wanted to be a springboard, but this is a possibility now. There's something – there's a bit of a gap there in between. You also played sevens. And we spoke to Stedman Hans last year. He was player of the year, but so were you in sevens.

I mean, firstly, how did you end up at sevens in the springbok set of Nohol and become player of the year? And, you know, to make that choice now, am I going to be a sevens guy or am I going to be a 15s guy? Talk to us about that. NBA, the people on my route, they were really good to me. They, you know, there was a lot of things fell in my favor because when I, we had a provincial sevens tournament in Durban.

And we went to the final with the Lions, no names. We had absolutely no one. but again just mates having fun pity myer um just you know let's try this we've never played sevens and we go into the final and i was selected as player of the tournament and when we you know and from there only two players got got contracts with us but my seventh side it was my save myself and Fabian Juris. And we played a couple of games on the circuit and then the Lions said I have to come back because in 2002 I was going to be part of the Super Rugby squad. So it wasn't a big choice because I had played sevens, I got the springboard colors and I was enjoying the circuit but I wanted to be a 15-man player.

And then in 2002 obviously the Super Rugby didn't go well but I got my first Bokkep. Just following up quickly on Lofi Elov, he's of course a friend of this channel, him and Jan de Kooning have a podcast themselves. He's like a father figure to almost, to a degree. We've spoken about this in the past. Just talk to me about the role that he's played in your career.

You said he sort of came up to you and spoke to you, but still, there's more to you than that. Yeah, while you were speaking there, I kind of got goosebumps with the timing that Lofi was part of my life and when my dad passed away in 2001 um the rugby kind of fell flat and there was there was there was a time where i didn't i didn't see i didn't see really see the need to to keep playing and lawfully was part of that process of or healing process the whole way and he got me he got me in touch with the right people and very scientific people like he he went out of his way to to put me in in contact with people that's that could help and you know heal the wounds of it and after that my rugby looked a lot different as well because it took time off um played rugby with with no injuries for a while i know later in my career i probably made up for for all the injuries i didn't have earlier in my career but uh it was it was a time where lafie made a big difference and he He was like a dad to me. And funny enough, the players at training always called him my dad. Kind of, it was the banter going around, but ironically, that was what he was. Did your dad, because I always tell Envy, I'm not like a super rugby analytical guy, but one thing I really understand is the pressure that a parent feels when their child is playing at a reasonably high level.

and I have sympathy for that. Did your dad ever get to, was he still around when you made the seventh player of the year or did he already pass by that plan? He saw me become a seventh springback and he went to the 2001 Mar del Plata Springback Seventh World Cup in Argentina. So my parents got to see me play in that World Cup and he never got to see me become the player of the year and he also didn't get to see me become a 15-man springbok now. Just briefly, Andre, people are used to you sitting in a study somewhere, and today clearly you've got a grass dock behind you and everything.

Just where are you at the moment? Just inform us a little bit. I'm sitting at the beautiful Elgro Lodge just outside of Poch, with the Val River running right next to me, and I see there's two ostriches fighting on the side of the road here. So I'm sitting in the Busch-Envia, and it's a beautiful view at the moment. And the reason why you're back?

We've got a bit of a break in Japan. Our preseason starts the 13th of July. So I've got a couple of weeks before I have to head back. And we haven't been back for two years. So it's good to be back.

And especially to come back to this is great. Well, I just want to jump the gun a little bit here. But this is something that I've been dying to tell people. And people, where's Andre? Where's Andre?

And I know people, but I can't tell you where Andre is. Tell us, Al-Andre, what's happening and why aren't we not seeing that much of you on this channel anymore? We're still going to be seeing you, but something big has happened to you, man. Come on. I actually get goosebumps saying that at last we can tell the people.

Thanks Envia And you were one of the first people that I actually told about this But yeah we had it we had a we had good three years but the last season uh was a bit tough we we we won one out of 14 it was one of those seasons where we just had so many injuries and the company decided that we're going to change change management and change staff so i've been uh they've made me the head coach at the heno red dolphins and with all of that the the assembly of the staff and everything has fallen onto my lap so that's why i've been i've been quite busy trying to get the the right mix of of people within the group so we can turn this thing around for for our company and um and it i've forgotten and i'm also i'm going to change over from defense to attack and geez i've forgotten how many calls and how much more involve the attack than the defense is. Yeah. So, well, congratulations from everyone here at Megafone. Like I said, we've been dying to tell people about it. You're like one of us.

When you make it, we make it. Thank you very much. We bask in your reflected glory. Well done, Andre. That's really exciting, Andre.

Congratulations. And we're going to talk more in a little bit about Japan and coaching and your evolution to coaching. So, I'm really excited to hear about that. And I definitely want to ask you about coaching Gen Z as well. because you kind of have come through kind of these generations and under people like Jake White.

But before we do that, as a spring bob, so you played about 33 tests or 31 tests, I think, and are a Rugby World Cup winner. You have a Rugby World Cup medal. And that's why I'm kind of embarrassed that I've never watched you, and I've been watching clips and old footage of you now. So I wanted to ask you a couple of things like that. You played in a time where Butch James was kind of another key fly half.

You talked about that you don't think Jake White really liked you that much. And you talk about that just a little bit. How is that to be a springbok, but not always to be the first choice, to be so different than the style of the other fly-off you were competing about? How was that journey for you? It was good, Paul.

It was at that time, you know, it felt like you're the little brat that says, yeah, the coach doesn't like me. He's not going to select me. But that year that Jake didn't select me really motivated me to or it gave me an opportunity to acknowledge this. And this is what you've got. You're not going to become any taller or you can't put on 20 Ks because your joints won't last anyway.

So this is this is what you've got. So what are you going to do about it? You've just come from a season where you were successful. You just didn't win the final. now 99 comes across you you don't get selected for the sa squad how are you going to handle this and the one thing that i would say about jake uh and it it's i don't think it was the case that he didn't like me that's what i thought at the time jake knew how he wanted to play and as a coach now i understand where he's where he came from so it was never the case that he didn't like me but he was he was honest in his in his the way that he he summed me up and the stuff that he said was right i had were i had i had some work to do but we sat on a plane once and this this was still the time that i thought jake didn't really like me and it's a flight back home but i'm taking a different flight and as luck would have it i'm sat straight next to jake on the way back home from a training camp.

We were sitting there and we had discussions and I enjoyed talking to him. He said something to me which just showed me that it's not a case of him not like me. He said to me, you've got the ability to win matches that not a lot of players have. He stopped the conversation. He didn't elaborate.

He didn't tell me why he thought that. I think I was so surprised I didn't say a word after that. And that's why he had that belief in me. But Jake did one thing right with me, is he always made me reach for the jersey. He never let me feel that the jersey was mine.

Some players need to feel that because they don't want to play with that anxiety or that fear. Jake knew that I, especially for the Springbok jersey, I always needed to reach for it. And that's how Jake got the best out of me in a Bok jersey. Andre, to follow up on that, One of the highlights as I researched your career was after the box had not beaten England for, I don't know, six or eight games in a row, you had kind of a game where you scored four drop goals and penalties and everything. and I'd like you to tell us a little bit more about that and how it felt but I'd also like you to as I was watching interviews whenever people asked you about that you talked more about the game before then than that game which told me a lot about you as a person as a player could you talk about that game and also tell us why you talk about the game before then as you were speaking I thinking well now i have to talk about the game before that again because that that game uh we we played island and we played in a terrible wind and against our plan i started running the ball off the kickoff we landed we ended up in there 22 straight from the kickoff because you couldn't kick the wall the wind was so bad long story short got dropped after that jake said not sticking to the plan, fair enough, and then Butch James had a fantastic game.

He was winning the game for us. Got injured, seriously injured, and in 20 games, I came and I lost the game for us. So, missed touch, they scored twice, I think there was a tackle on the side, it was one of the tries where they scored. And the last game, we had no fly-offs left, I was the only one. If there were, I think if there were someone else that could play 10, Jake would have picked him.

And I got an opportunity there. The luck sometimes just favours you. And I knew it, but I knew it was an opportunity. And we went into that game, I think we went down 14-0 quite quickly. And we just clawed our way back, and the forwards started getting some ascendancy onto them.

And then, you know, luckily on the day, the ball kind of found the post. It was still hitting some of those fades, which felt like I pulled them, but they came back. So someone was looking after me on the day. And yeah, we got to win that. And the next year, obviously, we got to win the World Cup.

Tell me a little bit about that World Cup experience. That, again, I think you didn't play in the final, but you played in the semifinal. What is it like to be at a World Cup to win it in the end? Did the team believe they were going to win it from the start? Or were you underdogs?

And how does it feel when you win it but you didn't play in the final? Could you talk about all of that a little bit? before you before you talk about the world cup i think one thing you need to understand about world cups which i understood a lot later but jake also got that right in the team is that when you go to the world cup you've got 15 starters and you've got everybody's got a role to play my role in that world cup squad was not to be a starter which which was the starter he was the best flyer in South Africa at that time. So my role was to back Butch up and when I get on to ensure that we close out games and if needed win games. But it wasn't just me that felt that way.

There's a lot of players in the group that knew their roles being a starter or someone from the bench. So we got that right. So me not playing in that final was, it didn't really make a difference. Obviously, you want to play in a final. But because you knew what your role was, and you knew what the objective was, and the stars aligned for us, Australia and New Zealand got cut in the quarterfinals, I think.

We nearly lost to Fiji in the quarterfinals. So the stars aligned for us, and we needed to take that opportunity, which we did. But it was also because the players in the group, you understood your role, you knew where you were needed. I'm glad you answered that because I was going to actually ask, and I always, if I ask the question, wonder if people will give an honest answer. We all remember the scene in Chasing the Sun 2, when Kubis Reinhard finds out he will not play in the final of the World Cup.

And he says sort of an expletive, what the F type of, but then you see him the next day on the field and he's engaged in doing the role of getting the other people ready and I've almost always wondered how is that is that really real do you yes you know you have the secondary role but there's a part of you that's just like dying inside that's frustrated and angry that you're not getting your chance is it for you is it is it 100% clear you understand your role and that kind of disappointment and frustration is just it's not an issue at that point i won't say it's let's take quibbers right now for instance we all know what a competitive player is what a competitive person is now i always say this and especially now in coaching even if it's not real if you take the time to fake it it means more than someone being toxic in in a team and it means that you still put the team above your own ambitions by faking those emotions so that the other players don't feed off a toxic negativity so even if it's fake you're still putting the team obviously if it's authentic and it's it's it obviously means more but even if you fake it if you if you're really that disappointed and and you're actually angry, but you don't show it, and you back the boys and you support them, it still means more than that toxic negativity. So it's good if it's authentic. It's still good if you can fake it. And then, you know, you prevent that toxic negativity going into a week's preparation. Andres suddenly moved.

So people, it's not a, what's it, space travel or time travel. We just ran out of light. So we made a plan. Thank you, Andres, thanks for that. I want to get back to that toxic environment thing.

It's now basically a year after the previous UFC final. There never was a toxic environment more relevant, I suppose, than it was a year ago, when the Bulls played Leinster in the previous final of the UFC. Jake White saying to his players after the game that he would usually have players like Leinster. But we also know there was a mutiny going on between the players. We've now had some inside information there.

And I think this year, maybe the shoe's on the other foot. maybe lenses a bit more upheaval, there's a bit of tension maybe between the coaches and the likes. How important is it? I mean, how much do you think that game was maybe lost because of that toxic environment that you referred to? It would have had a significant impact on the preparation.

It would have had a significant impact on any meeting that was run by the coaches, whoever was speaking. Players that aren't happy listen with a different ear. coaches that aren't happy speak to players with a different mouth so all of that through a week it just compounds anything that's or amplifies any problem that there is in a in a team it just amplifies it because like i said players hear a different message they hear a different tone when they don't like the coach or they don't get along with the coach or they feel they're not heard or they feel they're not respected by the coach you know at the moment in this day and age with all the media and the social media that the players don't really miss any press conference stuff in at my time if you don't go out to see what the coach said you don't know what he said in the press conference you don't know what he said in the in the media on on a monday if you don't go and look up look at it um to try and find it now it's it's on your phone straight after you can get it if you want so players don't miss that so if a if a coach says something that you know players might misconstitute as disrespectful or he's making excuses or blaming the players or whatever the case maybe i'm just spitballing out he you know they see that and going into big games the cohesion is what gets you through those tough times in the 22 have to defend three more phases get the penalty exit more than get a penalty kick it on the 22 and you know three minutes later you're you're trying to get over their line but that's cohesive units that do that and once though the respect line is broken and players don't get along with with all the coaches and what happens is you also get camps then. Because within those types of environments, you get camps. You get the head coach camp, and you get the assistant coach camp, and you get the neutral camp.

Boys, I just want to play rugby. And because you're neutral, you actually piss off more people. Now you have to choose a side. I don't want to choose a side. I just want to play rugby.

Yeah, I knew you were going to be like that. So there's no right answer in environments like that. And it's very tough. It's tough for players and tough for coaches. And I think that's the problem with sometimes the coaches don't even know.

If they just had someone telling them, listen, you said this, the players took it this way, let's go and fix it. You know, you get a second chance. But sometimes the coaches don't even know. Just for information, we're recording this before the final, but we're publishing it after the final. So we don't know what happened in this year's final.

Just briefly, while we're on that subject, this year's Bulls team is a significantly different team, completely different culture. It seems to be a much happier team. You've got some friends in there as well. Just briefly, what's your impression of the Bulls going to this final? Well, they took the time they had.

They didn't have a great start to the season, which was understandable. And I think it's a really good way to explain or a good example to explain that you're not going to turn a team around in two weeks. And what you see in the first two weeks is not what you're going to see in the final if you make it. and too many coaches are just being flung out and hung out to dry because you're not getting the results but there's a lot more there's a lot of dynamics that going in going into that recipe and you know especially in the beginning when when johan akerman was there he was still trying to get his you know the people around trying to get to know the people around him he was still trying to get to know the players you know the players are still trying to get to know him just on that level you the fact that you can put out a team and you can show something from the week is already a win but unfortunately you get judged by the w or the l not by the the marginal gains you make with within weeks and as coaches that's that's the big channel challenge mbia you have to stay in your lane you're going to get a lot of criticism from the from the side first game back don't win it yeah this is not the guy for the job i mean that's what's happening in the english premiership at the moment coaches are just being replaced left right and center because the results aren't coming but there's a lot of dynamics going into that recipe but as paul is on this podcast i have to make sure that i follow the hygiene routine that means asking you to like this video subscribe to this channel if you're not make sure that you are sometimes you think that you subscribe and you end up not being and what we do like and what youtube algorithm apparently likes is if you share it with your friends directly from youtube send it on WhatsApp whatever you can that helps us get a bit of traction there And also if you wanted to be informed of our new videos YouTube only sends those notifications to 15% of our subscribers, apparently. It's one of our WhatsApp channel, the link's down in the description below.

Yeah, so without any further ado, let's get back to Andrei. We've kind of segued into the coaching thing. I have one more question left on your Springbok career but i'm going to park it because i want to keep going with this no i'm going to come back to it i'm going to leave it for a for a big finale watch till the end of this episode to hear what question i i wanted to ask so andre you've struck me i've never met you in person but in all the discussion in the whatsapp group you're such a quiet spoken you look like you never get angry you're very thoughtful my experience growing up in rugby even at school and then if you look at is there's this image of this is like a manly sport where the coaches take no nonsense they yell and they curse and they have no sympathy you have to be tough so one is that a correct stereotype of how rugby was when you're growing up and secondly has there been a change in the expectation of what a coach has to do because of gen z or the millennials that people talk about where it's just a different culture and mindset can you talk about both when you were growing up is my stereotype correct and then now where you're coaching now is it significantly different it that's the way we were coached paul that's 100 the way we were coached and most coaches start their coaching career coaching the way they were coached somewhere you need to break the chain if if you want to coach differently you're going to break the chain and i don't think the there's still there's still there's still a place for the old school myth methodology it does it It does help if you, in certain scenarios or situations, it does help. But if you're just going to, if that's going to be your default, you're going to be out of there sooner than you got there. That's the one.

So that's the way we got coached. And I think, you know, coming back to Gen Z, I also went through a stage in my career where I was a toxic teammate. and so i've i've been that player luckily i had people that cared enough about me that said listen this isn't you this you know and so it didn't last very long but i i can i can pick that up very quickly if that starts happening with with players and with with the players now and although they say you need to it's the same as this gentle parenting formula you know the players want to be heard but they still want to be coached they still want to be in a structured environment stable environment that that where you need discipline and you also because as coaches we need to be careful of being too inclusive because you know we just don't want to rile up the players and then you get chucked out the door anyway because the players said they had to do everything you know so there's a balance you can't be so player driven and uh player centered where they they run the system it's still going to be your mark on there because you're the guy sitting on a monday morning you've got to you've got to be uh you're held accountable for that one or loss but there is a with the gen z guys it's it is different but there's still rugby players and that's that's the nice thing about the rugby fraternity it's very like-minded and it it comes down to having respect for for people and you can still be disciplined without being nasty you can still be a tough coach without being mean uh you don't have to jump into players characters and get personal. You know, we're trying to improve you as a player, not break you down as a person. That type of approach.

So it is different, and you have to, you know, the best thing a coach can do, I feel, is not treat everybody the same, because some guys are just, you know, a duck fella. You can say whatever you want. And other guys, you can't call them out in front of a group. The Japanese boys are exactly like that. You don't call them out in front of a group.

We talk to them behind closed doors and you, but then the relationship is there. They know that you're there to improve them. And then that conversation becomes a bit easier. You mentioned Japan. Now you've been coaching in Japan for three years, I think already now.

How different and difficult is that culturally for you? Language wise, the style thing that you mentioned, the Japanese culture is notorious for not, for being a little bit conflict diverse, et cetera. How was that for you, the adjustment? And how is it now? it's definitely improved my my coaching in the sense that i had to simplify messages looking back i over coached a lot and we i think it's a it's a problem you have when you start coaching because you don't want to miss anything but then you start realizing you know you need to go over the big rocks try and try and get less through but more often and that's forced me because now you're talking out of two mouths and you've got your meeting set at seven or eight minutes but because it goes to go through the translator's voice as well you stop at 12.

you're trying to have short meetings but you never make provision for the extra set you know the extra voice so that's that's helped me quite a bit even presentation wise trying to simplify and really get down to what just what's important with the culture it's That's probably the most difficult thing I had to adapt to. It's just players not speaking up. If you say, we're going to run everything this year and we're not going to kick, they'll walk out, they'll nod. They'll say, this is good, this is what you want. They'll tell each other it's not a great idea.

but when you break down the walls and you start building the trust they'll speak up and as you learn the language as well because in the beginning I didn't understand the language at all so they'd walk out, tell that to each other now I can hear the 9 and the 10 walk out saying this might not work and I can call them back and we change the plan to their plan and then from there they'll see that if they speak up it can actually make a difference It doesn't always cause a change, but at least we've spoken about it and they feel part of the process, which I think they're not used to in some instances because they don't speak up. Yes, Q, there's kind of a perception that the Japanese leagues are not very strong. There always was the concern when South African players went there, if they came back, they wouldn't be able to handle the rough and tumble of South African New Zealand. But I feel like almost the opposite has been proven. Our players that go there, yes, their careers are extended, but they come back and star here.

What is your view of the quality of rugby in Japan? And secondly, why is it that our players that go there and when they come back and play for the Springboks, they do really, really well? It's not a step backwards, in my opinion. The skill set, the level of their catch and pass is second to none. I've been doing the defense now for nearly four years, and you think that you've got a team in their own 22, and two pressure passes later, you're doing goal line defense because they got the ball away in a situation which you thought would never happen.

That's the one thing. The other thing is, I think if you take players that go over there, we might say that it's not as rough and tumble and robust. It doesn't change the player that goes over there. You know, Damon Delende is still going to be physical, and he's still going to run into international players, but just not every weekend. So it's not like he's taking a sabbatical on physicality and he's not going to be tested.

There's some tough games in there. And if you look at the rules change now, so you'll see maybe it'll be a bit less now, but you'll see less foreigners on the field in the Japanese league from next season because they're trying to get the japanese team to have more japanese players but it's it's still very much physical it's there's a and and i'm talking about all three divisions there's a there's a physicality there that people think because japanese players are a bit smaller their skill sets are good and they're very quick the game's very fast and maybe that's the other thing maybe it's because it's quicker but less physical in terms of the collisions. When they get back, they can actually keep up with the speed and then they're starved for that physicality. Could be something like that. But Damien D'Alene is still going to be physical.

Lourdes De Yaghe is still going to be physical. Cheslin Colby has been very physical while he's playing in Japan. Jesse Creel, Cannon didn't have the best season, so he's had to defend quite a lot. But he's still going to be physical and he's still taken enough contact to set him up for the season. How did you get into coaching?

when during your rugby career did you start thinking I might like coaching as a next step? I think because of the position I played I was always part of coaching and later on when the injuries really started hitting me my mind started wandering over to coaching because I want to leave the game and 2008 i had a year-long injury with 2009 i had a year-long injury couldn't play and then after that i didn't i didn't get a call up from the spring box again went to the sharks and then i started touring over going overseas but it's it's just difficult if you if you want to stay in the game and as a player i think if i didn't go into coaching I might still be playing Paul, and that could be very detrimental to my health today. So the easy thing for me was to hang up the boots and take up the whistle. But I was always looking at getting into coaching because of the position I played. Something that you mentioned on your interview with Ben Herring, whose videos we also published on here, he's into coaching, also the coaching culture, was the fact that you said being a test player, or a good player, or any player for that matter, does not automatically make you a good coach.

And you also sort of alluded to the fact that you have to be more in touch with what's happening with your players. Talk to me about that sort of epiphany that you had. Oh, okay, I've been doing this wrong. And I remember you talking about a specific incident when you were still coaching at NWU. And the players were lethargic and something was wrong.

And that was sort of a turning point in your mind almost. Talk to me about that, please. Yeah, Envia, that's the night that the chain broke. And when I realized I didn't want to coach the way I was coached. And it wasn't obviously all the coaches that coached me, though.

but most of them and it was a i think it was a thursday night or and the boys just came out very lethargic and obviously the way i was coached if you're getting all of this effort stuff wrong then we get onto the line and we do fitness and i usually got the backing from the assistant coach and daniel just didn't say a word and then afterwards he said to me can he talk to me i said it's you know it sounds quite serious and he said i just wanted to tell me that you know the boys are they have exams now so because he was he's been with the nw for for a number of years before i got there and they have tests at nine in the morning i think and then they go through the night some of them they write the test and then they have a test at the afternoon which they sleep for two hours study for that write the test and then they come to training and while he was excuse me while he was speaking it just felt like i wanted the earth to suck me in i was so embarrassed with how i've handled the situation and that was the turning point for me in how i approached situations and my philosophy of understand and assist was born was born on that night that's that's that's That's such an interesting approach because, again, we've seen, you know, the old school approach not working. Coach being made aware of the fact that there are certain things that are not working in the likes and they're not deciding not to do anything about it. And, yeah, like you just said, those are the kind of dinosaurs and fossils that I don't want to call it that. It sounds a bit derogatory. It's not what I mean.

But, you know, when I asked you, when I started attending the Bulls press conferences, speaking to Jake White, I was an absolute nobody. I'm still a nobody, but at least Jake knows my name by now. And I think back to that day after the press conference we had after the game against Saracens. Remember when the wind was blowing so badly and the balls were literally, the ball was being blown back. So you kicked it that way, but it landed up behind you.

And you and I still sort of strategize beforehand. I'm going to ask Jake this because I'm not a rugby expert by any means. And he said to me, ask Jake this and this and this. And he's going to say this and this and this. And it pan out exactly.

and what was interesting to me there was the fact that he said, Enby, let me teach you a rugby lesson. I've told this story many times, but it was a turning point in my life. You know, that kind of a thing that you learned from, how did you know, for example, what Jake would say there, you know, how he would react and the likes, you know, that's 20 years ago. And yet 20 years later, it's still that same kind of thing. Talk to me about that.

I think it's because we got to spend a lot of time with him, got to know his thinking, and, he got that group very tight-knit, which means he had to give a lot of himself. He had to be vulnerable at times. And I don't think the SA public saw him that way. I saw him in a much different light when I was coached by him, especially in the latter part of my career. So I've got a lot of respect for Jake.

I think he's a superb coach. tonight's you know wherever you go he goes he sets up championship teams so there's no you can't deny the the quality that's there but i think we've we've spent a lot of time and also coupled with a bit of coaching experience nowhere near that he's got but a couple couple years of coaching and understanding what those situations require and how you're sitting as a coach. You know what it requires, but you just can't see it because things are just not going your way. That's kind of a good segue into one of the things I like about you. I've learned so much about rugby.

When I played rugby in high school, remember Rip Van Winkle, it was we practiced on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then played the game on Saturdays, and there was very little tactics and strategy. We just went out and played what's in front of us, and there were a lot of curse words from the coach in terms of what we had to do. Yeah. So you taught me lots of insights. You have a good way of with clips and photos, explaining patterns and things on the game.

Where did that come from? And did you like Rossi have that as a player already that you saw the game and the detail and the movement? Or is it something you had to teach yourself when you became a coach? as a player we i would i would like to think that as a player i i started to develop that started to look a bit like i like i said earlier i tend to obsess about things that i that i really like so like with the golf and fishing and with rugby there was when they gave us the first training clip it was like a new world that had opened up that you can actually analyze your training and you can review your training and when you got the new analysis software that you can it was like i couldn't believe that you know you could actually do this so i've always wanted to always wanted to see what others couldn't see or try and look for something that and sometimes you you confuse yourself and that's also happened so but i think that's part of the process to kind of distinguish between what's important and what's just fluff and white noise so it's definitely a thing that i've that i want that i had as a player because i was always looking for something that we could do or use but as a coach because you're analyzing and reviewing anyway i think it's just sharpened a bit because you the knowledge there's a bit more knowledge now you speak to very knowledgeable people and you get to you get to broaden your horizons when when it comes to analysis and if you speak to a lot of people with different views you get to see the game in different views and that's why i think it's important to speak to especially people with different views you know it doesn't always have to end up in an argument but we have to be able to to agree to disagree so no i i think it's just it's developed more now than i'm a coach i don't know but there's two sides to that story the one side is being able to see what's going on there and the other side of it's being able to translate it to us you know no no nothings so that we can actually understand it i mean you've got this ability to translate what's technical into more layman's language i mean that to me i mean i've spent many hours with you going through these slips and the likes and I can't remember half of them but I know that there were so many enlightening moments almost and you've got this way of like I said you know making it easy for us to understand you know where does that come from you know you speak English better than most English speaking people that I know you're a good communicator where does that come from yeah my English is especially now in Poch we need to wrap this up because the English is running out uh mb i think the the japanese exposure has helped me with with that quite a lot and also i've i take a keen interest in in communication in even just presentations you know how can you present better so people remember better uh you know learning is not remember it's not forgetting that's learning for me and if you can put something out there that people can cannot forget then they've actually learned what you wanted to teach. So I think it's a case of trying to put yourself in their shoes.

And what would you see in this? How would you go about analyzing this? If someone said this to you, would that ring a bell? Will it bring something back to you? And again, obsessing about it, trying to be the best communicator, trying to put presentations out there that they won't forget.

it just comes back down to and it's something I enjoy it's something I enjoy well that's something that I wanted to bring across here the fact that you mentioned right in the beginning that if you do something you study it you go into depth to great lengths to make it better and this is a classic example I know this off you so I wanted to highlight it so thank you for telling that Paul I think we should wrap this up I would just say that it's really impressive Andre and it has enhanced my view of the game tremendously as a fan And I find myself in game saying, look at them fold and look at the three, four pod. And it makes the game fun for me. So I have a last question here. And then the last question that Envia is waiting for at the end. As a modern day coach, how much do you think as a percentage is the tactics and analytics and all of that important versus the psychology and the communication?

if you had to like put a slider on a scale of one to a hundred? How important are those two buckets? Well, firstly, I'd say I've put that on a sliding scale now because the older I get, the more the psychology becomes important and the tactics become less important. At the moment, I probably started off at 20% psychology and 80% tactics, probably more. Now, the psychology is probably 60 and the tactics 40.

And like I said, the disparity is getting bigger because I can just see the difference it makes when you have good relationships. When you can speak to people who's not had a great game and you can make them understand that you understand. And no player wants to play like that. No player makes mistakes on purpose. And even tough conversations.

If you can empathize and you can show them that, you know, one of the first things I tell players with those is that that's something that I probably did more than he did. And so psychology, every day that goes past, it becomes more important and tactics become less important. But the tactics are very, it's challenging and it's a nice thing because you're making plans and it keeps you humble because you think you've got this figured out and then a new coach comes with something completely brilliant and something you haven't thought of and now you have to try and catch up. Andre, before Paul asks his bombshell of a question at the end, something just came up in my mind here. We spoke to Kennedy Zimbabwe, like I mentioned last week, and I asked him the question about Zimbabwe now, for example, having to play the SAA side, not the best side because it's outside the test window and everything.

And he mentioned the fact that cohesion is almost more important than anything. So the coaches, international coaches specifically, wouldn't bother spending a lot of time on tactics and everything else. They would spend time on cohesion. so the guys would know how to communicate, how to get to know each other and the signals, that kind of a thing. I wanted your opinion on that, because I was also wondering about the barbarians.

You've got Scott Robertson, you've got Felipe Contoponi, coaches from different countries with players that's never played before, except the only thing they've done together is go out to a bar and have a couple of beers. How would you approach that kind of a challenge? Like I said, get cohesion going to make it the proper game. Yeah, cohesion is a, and I'd still like to see Megafoen get Gainline Analytics on as a guest because they're the gurus of cohesion and they run a thing called the TWI, the Teamwork Index. and they've been spot on with so many so many teams and they've they can they've got this algorithm that they've written and cohesion is the number one thing even before psychology and tactics it's that shared understanding players that play together train together they get to know each other in those tight moments i know he's gonna probably not tip this he's gonna carry So my decision is probably made because of the amount of time we've played together.

And I'm not late to the ruck. If you haven't played together, you preserve your line on the outside. He decides to tuck and go. And you're late on the clean. And Marcel Coutier steals the ball.

So I think cohesion is very important. In a barbarian's game, I think it'll be difficult to breed cohesion and cultivate that in just a week. I think the freedom there is very important. and then also the simplicity of what you want to do on the field is very important. But I think it needs to be a fun week.

And to me, you need to get competitive people within that. That's the key for Barbarian. Reinhardt, for instance, those types of players, you put them in there and you'll see a Barbarian team do really well. DJ Perenara, yeah. exactly i see his captain his captain yeah and there's again people this is after the game it's airing after the game but we recorded before the game so don't shoot us i'd still prefer you i'd still prefer right above tj no of course you would i mean come on you're wearing a black but it's normally green anyway paul i think it's maybe time to you know let us have it now we're at that last question that i know the tension is just built so andre i like to really research for these interviews because I've been away from South Africa for so long.

And in my research, someone said to me, you have to go look at his kicking routine. And then I discovered that you were the last known rugby player in the world to use sand on the tee, even as a springbok. And I wanted to ask you because that doesn't, it sounds slightly interesting, but I went to look for clips and I thought I'd find 10 second clips of you making the sand pile and kicking but it was a real production it was like a Hollywood work of art that involved water and that and arrows at the goalpost could you talk us through why was that routine so important for you that you never changed it you never moved to the plastic tee and it was a very detailed thing can you talk about that a little bit and why you did it and why it stuck with you till the end well i think the the origin of the sand is is quite important not being from a big school i i i didn't know the amount of people that the other players the other players knew each other because they played against each other in the big schools and i remember getting to university and just pretending that i know people because i didn't really know people i wasn't in a big school And when we went to the S21 training camp in Cape Town, we, from Davi's name, I said, okay, Yaku, you and Andre, I'm going to take you for kicking. All right, I take my boots, and off we go. And when we got to the field, he said, all right, get your tees.

And now Yaku's got his tees. He's played super rugby already, and I'm standing next to him. I've got nothing. and I saw a pile of sand on the side and someone had finished a case of I think it was castle or whatever the case may be, so I chucked the cans to the one side and I took this box and I filled it up with sand and I came walking, now that in itself was embarrassing, but it wasn't going to be as embarrassing as me saying and he still looked at me and he said, skop jy van sand af and I was thinking in my head well I do know now I'm kicking off sand and that's how it started that's how the sand started and I tried tees in between I just it never gave me the same feeling and I would always go back to the sand and it was it was quite a I don't think the shot clock today would have given me the opportunity to to use the sand but I'm quite a process driven individual when comes to sport so it was it was quite calming getting the sand you know i remember that the the sand on my hands making the line then pushing the sand off ensuring that it's a it's a it's a circle then getting back my boot very close to the ball all that process and so it was part of the process that made you forget about the outcome that was about to happen just thinking about what needs to happen with that ball and that and the sand helped with that and just lastly from my side we talk about the rugby community kind of thing and people often ask me how did i get in touch with you and i want to do a shout out here to our mutual friend duke scotts martin kotzer because he's with me on radio rugby and we're actually going to be he's going to be uh doing the afrikaans commentary this weekend of the springboard game against the barbarians and uh i asked him he asked me one day do you want under the turist's number and i was what of course i want the notorious number So people, that's how I got to know Andre Petruelis. Now you have it.

Rugby community, it goes worldwide. So there we go. Paul, I think you can put this one away. Yeah, I think I want to give Andre the last word. Andre, it was a real privilege for me.

You don't know it. Once you commented in our WhatsApp group on something, analysis of a game that I did, which was very silly analysis, and you gave it like a thumbs up, and I screenshotted that and sent it to everyone else. So I need you to know that. And I'd like, it was a privilege for me to talk to you, Thank you very much for making the time. I want you to maybe get the last word and tell us what are you the most proud of so far in your life and career?

And what do you hope at the end of your career you get remembered for other than the sand pile? I think up to now, besides my family, it's the way that I've changed the way that I coach and the way that I approach the people that I work with and the people that I coach. I think I could have easily gone down the same route as, you know, the next coach and just but and also that I didn't fall into the trap of trying to be someone I'm not. Because I think within the coaching fraternity, you do see some special coaches and it's very easy to just copy and paste. And I'm fortunate enough that I've not gone down that route and it's kept me quite authentic in that space.

I think what I'd love to be remembered for is that the result was never more important than the player. I say that to my players. I say that to my players a lot because I think there's too many of them that go into the field so worried about the result that they don't play rugby and then some of them are having trouble off the field that we don't know about and we still you still get coaches shouting from the side um with no understanding of what that play is going through So I think, yeah, that's what I want to be remembered for. Andrei, thank you very much. I really appreciate you making the time for us, taking time away from your family while you're in South Africa.

I know it's been a while since you've been here, so it's been a bit of a sacrifice. So thank you very much, as usual, for coming through for us at Megafun. We appreciate you. Thank you. Gents, this has been an absolute privilege, Paul.

I enjoy your comments on the WhatsApp group there's a lot more stuff that I can actually like that you say and one thing that Paul the one thing you did in the one group where you you kind of gave perspective on a coaching level about Johan Akerman and you earned a lot of respect from me there not that that should mean anything but I just I like the fact that people understand it's still a person that's sitting in that chair I was just going to say, Envia knows I have this weird thing that because of things that happened in my life, when I feel something positive, I have to say it, even though if it sounds cliched or not. And at my age, I try to surround myself or be close to people that are respect worthy and that are what I just call good people. And I'd say, Andra, I've never met you, but in my heart, I'm 100% convinced. And I felt you were a bit emotional at the end when you were talking about the players. I feel like you're a good person and I'm just honored and happy to be on the fringes of something that has you involved.

And that's a genuine, it's not a Yank comment. That's a genuine, honest comment. Yeah, thanks, Paul. Thank you. This is The Long Way to the Game.

Only on Megaphone Rugby. Thank you.

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