Whether his Blitzboks team win a maiden Sevens World Cup on home soil will not alter grizzled coach Neil Powell’s legacy.
Powell’s team will try to emulate the Springboks of 1995 when they kick off their bid for World Cup glory at Cape Town Stadium on Friday but what the coach has achieved with this team transcends the Sevens discipline, and indeed the sport.
Powell will end his involvement with the team after 15 years as player and then coach at the conclusion of the tournament to take up the director of rugby position at the Sharks.
His contribution to the Sevens set-up has been enormous.
Since he took over, the team hasn’t just won trophies, they’ve captured hearts.
Habitual winners on the Sevens circuit, the Blitzboks have set pulses racing with their high-energy game in which tireless toil, grit and determination are the team’s hallmarks.
Their “all-for-one” ethos has driven the team, often in the absence of superstars.
They may often be devoid of marquee players but it helps that the Blitzboks are one of the most transformed national teams in this country.
Their drive and energy is as infectious as the smile with which they do it.
Much of it is down to Powell, who made it his mission to make his players champions on and off the field.
“The focus is definitely more off field than on it,” Powell said on the eve of the World Cup.
That may sound incongruous. How can a professional coach who operates at the apex of his sport invest more off the field than on it?
For management it has always been a much bigger honour when someone comes up to us and says we’ve got a bunch of young men who are always respectful, disciplined and well mannered.
— SA Sevens coach, Neil Powell
The one, however, feeds into the other. Balanced athletes, or let's make that human beings, have a keener sense of value, and what needs to be sacrificed to achieve objectives.
“For management it has always been a much bigger honour when someone comes up to us and says we’ve got a bunch of young men who are always respectful, disciplined and well mannered,” said Powell.
“Rugby will finish for most of us at the age of 32 to 35 and then you have to go into the real world and be a good husband, good father and employee. That is what we focus on. It is about developing the young men who come into the system as people, and not as players.
“If you see where some of the guys who have retired from the game are now, we are really proud of them.
“They’ve made a success of their life in a personal capacity and as professional players,” said Powell.
He may have tough-as-teak coaching principles that guide his players on the field but clearly Powell’s general philosophy to the men under his remit is one that is enlightened.
It would have resonated with the owners of the Sharks, who also have a progressive outlook on how the people on their payroll fit into a much larger picture.
Powell will fit right in at the Sharks but before he heads for Durban he has unfinished business in Cape Town this weekend.
The Blitzboks have played in just one Sevens World Cup final, which they lost to Fiji in Hong Kong in 1997.
Getting the job done in front of their home fans would be the ultimate for Powell, who until the end remains steadfastly pragmatic.
“I think one will get emotional once the players run out onto the field. We have four games then hopefully three, two and then one. How amazing it will be if we for one last time can sing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (before the final). It will be great but I also know life isn’t a fairy-tale.”
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