Nick Mallett
Nicholas Vivian Howard Mallett (born
October 30,
1956 at
Haileybury,
England) played for and later coached the
Springboks,
South Africa's national
rugby union team.
Mallett moved to
Rhodesia with his family in
1956 when he was only six weeks old. He first arrived in
Cape Town, South Africa in
1963, after which he attended St Andrews College in Grahamstown. He later graduated from the
University of Cape Town in
1977. While a student at the university, he was selected to play for the
Western Province rugby union team.
In
1979 Mallett moved back to England to attend
Oxford University where he not only gained further qualifications but also won
Blues in
rugby union and
cricket. Eventually he returned to South Africa, where he represented
Western Province in four consecutive
Currie Cup wins between
1982 and
1985, and played two games for the Springboks in
1984.
Mallett once again left South Africa in
1985, this time for
France, where he played and coached rugby for seven years until
1992 before eventually returning to South Africa in
1994 and taking a job as Head of the False Bay Rugby Club until
1995.
Between 1995 and
1996, Mallett took up the role of Head Coach for
Boland before being appointed assistant coach to the Springboks in
1996 and finally getting the job of Springbok Coach in
1997.
Between August 1997 and December
1998, under Mallett's guidance, the Springboks went on a record winning streak of 17 consecutive test wins. As part of the unbeaten run the Springboks won the
Tri Nations Series undefeated and beat several teams by record margins, including a 61-22 demolition of
Australia, 52-10 humiliation of
France in
Paris, 68-10 win over
Scotland in
Edinburgh, 33-0 defeat of
Ireland and 96-13 drubbing of
Wales. The run ended when an exhausted Springbok team was defeated by
England at
Twickenham at the end of a long tour on the 5th of December
1998.
The relationship between Mallet and
Gary Teichmann, arguably South Africa's most successful captain ever, began to sour and Teichman was controversially excluded from the
1999 Rugby World Cup squad. Mallet desperately looked for a new captain, first turning to
Corné Krige then
Rassie Erasmus,
Joost van der Westhuizen and
Andre Vos for a solution. In the end the internal instability in the squad seemed to harm their performance as the squad suffered 4 consecutive defeats and were finally knocked out of the championship in the
semi-final by eventual winners Australia. Despite his teams poor shape in 1999 they still managed to break more records, beating
Italy 101-0 and England 44-21, with
Jannie de Beer kicking a world record 5 drop goals in the latter test to smash England's World Cup dreams.
In
2000, Mallett accused the
South Africa Rugby Football Union (SARFU) of "greed" for selling Tri-Nations championship tickets at inflated prices. He had alientated the SARFU executive, and on
September 27, he resigned as national coach at the start of a disciplinary hearing began into allegations that his comments had brought the game into disrepute. Some fans, upset by how he had treated Teichman and his teams sudden poor performance, were also keen to see him go.
Mallett moved back to France as coach for the
Paris club
Stade Français, which he led to two consecutive
French domestic title wins in
2003 and
2004 before returning to South Africa where he accepted the job of Director of Rugby in the
Western Province. Initially there was speculation that he might coach the Springbok team again, but those rumours were quashed by the appointment of
Jake White as the new South African coach.
In spite of his team's poor performance and the internal strife that characterised his final years as coach, Mallett remains one of South Africa's most successful coaches ever, having won 27 of the 38 tests played under his guidance and rewriting the record books several times.
*
SupaRugby: Nick Mallett New Director of Rugby*
Scrum.com: Nick Mallett Fact File *
Stade Francais*
Mallett calls for shake-up in South African rugby
