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Rassie Erasmus has found an attack coach to replace Swys de Bruin at the Springboks

Former Munster player and coach Felix Jones has joined the Springboks. (Photo by Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)

With the Springboks attack coach, Swys de Bruin, withdrawing from the South African management team just weeks before the World Cup is due to kick off, Rassie Erasmus has been on the lookout for a new man to charge of the side’s offence.

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It appears that 15-cap Irish fullback Felix Jones could now link up with the Springboks squad in the coming days.

Jones was shoulder-tapped by Erasmus last year but was contracted to Pro14 side Munster at the time, preventing the appointment. Jones has now parted ways with the Irish province is theoretically available to join South Africa immediately. Erasmus and Jones previously teamed up as coaches for Munster.

The former Irish representative had his playing years cut short after suffering a major neck injury in 2015. By then he’d managed to clock up over a dozen tests for Ireland as well as almost a century of matches for Munster.

As well as coaching Munster, the 32-year-old has previously worked with Joe Schmidt for the national side.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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