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Rassie rejects Bok job

Cape Town - Two of the hot favourites to succeed Peter de Villiers as the new Springbok coach have played down their chances and instead opted to commit their futures to Western Province - for the time being.

Rassie Erasmus will resume his role as the Director of Rugby at Western Province, following his return from the Springbok coaching set-up where he fulfilled the role of technical advisor, a role he was initially expected to fulfil in France four years ago.

“I would have been involved at the 2007 tournament already, but things turned out differently then. I had the chance now and really wanted to help win the cup. Unfortunately, it did not work out that way.

“I am not interested in getting directly involved with the coaching of the Boks, but rather help them on a technical basis once more in 2015,” Erasmus told Tuesday’s Die Burger.

Allister Coetzee, who along with Erasmus; is contracted to Western Province Rugby until the end of next season, also told Die Burger that he also still wants to bring back glory to the Cape in the form of silverware, but according to Tuesday's Cape Times, he did not entirely rule himself out of contention.

"I am contracted until the end of 2012 with WP. I would really like to win silverware with Western Province," Coetzee said.

The Cape Times further suggested that the new post as SARU's new post as director of rugby will be made available to Erasmus, but was denied by the former Springbok flank.

"I don't know about that and what it would entail. We are contracted to WP, and with how we are playing now, we could be fired before then! I don't know anything about that so I am definitely not in the mix there."

However, as the race warms up for the vacant Springbok coaching job, it would be interesting to see if the realisation of an opportunity missed influences their initial decision and persuades either or both of them to have a change of heart.

If that would be the case, Western Province rugby will be in for a major shuffle after news that centre, Jaque Fourie will join up with the Panasonic Wild Knights after they lost players elsewhere for next season including JJ Engelbrecht, Johann Sadie, and Lionel Cronje.

Despite the acquisition of Gerhard van den Heever, not much talk in the way of players has been uttered since and it seems as if former fullback Joe Pietersen is now being courted to make a return to the Cape.

Province released Pietersen of his contract to join French club Bayonne last year and still have Conrad Jantjies and Gio Aplon who can play in that position.

Fourie and fellow Stormers team-mate, Peter Grant are scheduled to return to the Stormers setup once the Japanese season ends in March, provided either of their teams have made the Japanese post-season or not.
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