Fears growing at Leinster that in-demand Jacques Nienaber is on way out

Irish Daily Mirror

15-06-2025

There are growing fears that Jacques Nienaber is on his way from Leinster - and that there is an announcement scheduled for the coming days.
The South African, who has spent two full seasons at the Irish province, has been the subject of initially tentative enquiries from French, England clubs and South Africa Rugby, that have now gathered significant pace.
These approaches stem from the fact neither Nienaber, who's signed his current deal to July 2026, nor Leinster, have released details of an extension.
"Jacques has been part of two Springbok World Cup winning squads and yet is still only an assistant coach at albeit one of the best clubs in the world," says a rugby insider.
"But Leinster are not, and never will be, prestigious wage payers and he could probably treble, quadruple his money at some of the bigger Top 14 clubs or at one or two English clubs, depending on their owners' whims."
Moreover, the idea that Leinster have finally shaken the trophy winning monkey off their back will add to Nienaber's lustre and Jake White's ringing endorsement last Saturday of the Leinster defence won't have fallen on deaf ears.
"It would be wrong of me not to say Jacques' defence was outstanding. We tried bashing their line. They kept us out just before half time and it must have been a massive boost for them.
"Credit to Jacques and the defence. We were a little bit one-off instead of running with numbers, people around the ball, but that's what happens when you're under the pump against a good team.
'Just tonight you saw the added value that he does as a defence coach. He's well, well known as that and he made it difficult for us.
"We scored seven points and we had scored the second most amount of points in the competition this year and last year it was the most, and the year before it was the most so it just shows that they've obviously bought in to that element of their game.
"Stuart Lancaster had a philosophy that was an attack philosophy, Jacques has come in and obviously tightened the defence and now the jigsaw puzzle is coming together because you haven't moved away from attacking and your defence has become much harder to break down.
"You have to give credit where credit's due. Out of the three finals, this is by far the toughest final we've had.
"Make no bones about it, they've gone another level up. That was Test rugby. It's like everything is in fast forward."
The feeling inside the the rugby world though is that Nienaber, if he is set on leaving, has already been approached, knows the destination but, in respect to Leinster, it has been kept in-house.
"Jacques is a very conscientious individual and would not want the story at the back end of a season which was fraught with difficulties in Leinster's case, to get diverted to being about him," continues the rugby source
Nienaber has previously ruled out returning to South Africa but Rassie Erasmus is keen to have his former colleague as part of the coaching staff - possibly as Head Coach - for a crack at a third successive Rugby World Cup title in 2027 with South Africa.
"I don't think Jacques owes Leinster anything, he contributed very much to their success this season.
"But with a potential extraordinary treble on offer with South Africa or the possibility of becoming a €1-million per season coach at a wealthy French club the question starts to come down to what he thinks if best for his career and family in the long run."
The question as to whether SA Rugby could afford Nienaber is moot, they are already paying Rassie Erasmus 15m Rand (€750k) per annum.
French Top 14 clubs have a budget of €7m to allocate to 'coaching staff' any way they see fit while former Munster Head Coach Johan van Graan is estimated to be earning around €600k at Bath.
As White says, there would be no shortage of contenders to fill his post should it become vacant.
Leinster's machine will purr along nicely and it is nothing like as simple for Bulls.
'All credit to Leo too for bringing in guys like that. Where to for the Bulls? We've got to find ways in which we can catch up because I repeat, Leinster aren't going to come back towards the field. Leinster are going to keep moving forward.
'It's a bit like a Formula One racing car, if your pit stop is three seconds and theirs is two, and you think when you get it to two you could catch them but they've probably on 1.3 by then and you're still behind.
'So credit, as I said, Jacques has added that and I'm sure Leo will find other things they need to get better at.
"Our job now is to make sure that we can find ways to fast track whatever we can fast track so that we can compete because we're going to find it hard to beat teams like Croke Park and Aviva if we don't catch up the things we need to catch up.'