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Leonard returns to Loftus

Marais will take charge of his first season of Super Rugby with former Springboks loose forward Leonard as his forwards coach with David Manual as the backline coach.

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Gary Botha [scrums and breakdown] and Pine Pienaar [defence] will be involved with both the Super Rugby and Currie Cup sides, as well as the junior sides in this capacity.

Tim Dlulane will continue in his role as team manager. The technical team to assist the coaches are John-William Meyer and Divan Strydom, who will also act as kicking coaches. SARU Mobi-Unit member Louis Koen will assist them in this regard when needed.

In another move, Blue Bulls Under-21 coach, Hendré Marnitz, has been promoted to Currie Cup coach for 2016. He will be assisted by Denzil Frans [forwards] and Hayden Groepes [backs and technical]. Nqubeku Zulu will be team manager in the first round of the Currie Cup and Dlulane will take over in the second round. Zulu will then move to the Blue Bulls U21's.

Pote Human takes over from Marnitz at U21 level and will coach the forwards. He will be assisted by former Springbok fullback, Bevin Fortuin, who will coach the backs, with Vainon Willis the new technical analyst.

Leonard returns to LoftusFormer Leopards coach Jaco Pienaar is the new  Blue Bulls U19 coach, with former Bulls player Dewey Swartbooi the new backs coach. Hendry Seerane is the team manager and Willis as technical analyst. 

Karin Visser will be personal assistant to all the professional teams.

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"We are restructuring our operational and logistical departments to make us more streamline and closer to each other," explained BBC's High Performance Manager Xander Janse van Rensburg. 

"This will also result in us pulling our amateur arm closer to us, which will strengthen our relationships with our clubs. In order to achieve that, we extended Werner de Beer's responsibilities into a position of coordinator: professional teams, operational, logistics and amateur Rugby."

Janse van Rensburg will, with Marais, focus on the structures around professional rugby.

"This includes all matters like contracting of players and scouting and all things outside 'the four lines'. Nollis will handle all rugby related matters 'inside the four lines'," Janse van Rensburg explained.

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"It is fantastic that we could achieve all of this with a strong representation of former players that can carry the Bulls culture into the future. Guys like Nollis, Anton, Gary, David, Tim, Hayden, Nqubeko, Vainon, Denzil and Dewey all came through the structures. Equally pleasing is the fact that we could honour our transformation goals as well, with 50% of our management team black."

The management teams are:

Bulls: 

Head coach: Nollis Marais

Forwards: Anton Leonard

Backs: David Manuel

Technical: John-William Meyer and Divan Strydom

Team manager: Tim Dlulane

Baggage master: Elias Bennet

Blue Bulls:

Head coach: Hendré Marnitz

Forwards: Denzil Frans

Back and technical: Hayden Groepes

Team manager Round One: Nqubeku Zulu

Baggage master Round One: Simon Dyidi

Team manager Round Two: Tim Dlulane

Baggage Master Round Two: Elias Bennet

Blue Bulls Under-21:

Head coach and forwards: Pote Human

Backs: Bevin Fortuin

Technical: Vainon Willis

Team manager: Nqubeko Zulu

Baggage master: Simon Dyidi

Blue Bulls Under-19:

Head coach and forwards: Jaco Pienaar

Backs: Dewey Swartbooi

Technical: Vainon Willis

Team manager: Hendy Seerane

Baggage master:  Akhona Felani

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