New twist in Southern Kings coach saga

In a dramatic turn of events, the Southern Kings have aborted the process of selecting a new coach for the team for now.

Southern Kings Board Chair, Loyiso Dotwana, says the process of selecting a new coach for the team will start afresh.

In a statement, the Kings board of directors says they arrived at the decision on the recommendations of the interviewing panel.

? STATEMENT ⚫
The GRC, the majority shareholder in the ISUZU Southern Kings, has accepted the initial recommendation of the interviewing panel to abort the process of selecting a new Head Coach.
Read more: https://t.co/uc6q0c02ez pic.twitter.com/9v6ouuBCoV

— Isuzu Southern Kings (@SouthernKingsSA) August 2, 2019

The panel felt that the process was undermined especially the persistent media leaks regarding the qualifications of certain candidates.

In the interim, Robbi Kempson will act as interim coach and will be assisted by Bram van Straaten and Vuyo Zangqa.

The trio will prepare the team for the upcoming warm up match against Georgia in Tbilisi at the end of August.
The Kings are one of the South African teams playing in the Guinness Pro 14.

Dotwana says they’ll headhunt the new coach.

He also confirmed that former Springbok coach, Peter de Villiers made the shortlist for the vacant coaching post.

He says the selection panel informed him that de Villiers’ coaching certificate is outdated.

“As a chairman, I’m not in a position to dispute that, but nonetheless, we gave instruction to the interviewing panel to leave the certification aside and rank the candidate purely on rugby technical matters.”