All the Kings' men
Southern Kings Director of rugby Alan Solomons has finalised his coaching team which he describes as an "English soccer management" set-up.
Preparations for the Kings' debut Super Rugby season next year have begun in earnest in Port Elizabeth, with Solomons heading up a structure which he compared to the set-up at the Queensland Reds, and former Crusaders hooker Matt Sexton taking up the position of head coach.
"It is very similar to the system that the Queensland Reds have got with Ewan McKenzie as a Director of coaching, then Richard Graham underneath him as head coach," he told this website.
Solomons explained that while slightly different to the division of coaching roles at most Super Rugby franchises, the structure is favoured by many clubs in the English Premiership.
"It is similar to what they have got overseas, Dean Richards did it ages ago with Leicester and I suppose you have got the same at Harlequins where Conor O'Shea is the Director of rugby.
"Mark McCall had the same thing at Saracens when he was the head coach and Brendan Venter was the Director of rugby, I basically see it as an English soccer management style," he said.
Sexton will perform the role of head coach and take charge of the forward pack with some assistance from Barend Pieterse, whilst his fellow Kiwi Brad Moar has been appointed as attack coach with the experienced Omar Mouneimne taking the role of defensive specialist.
"Matt [Sexton] will be doing the forwards, so he is ultimately responsible for the line-outs, scrums and the mauling, and he will be assisted in the line-outs by Barend Pieterse who will also be assisting our Vodacom Cup side.
"Brad will focus on our team attack and the backline," said Solomons.
The Kings boss said that he is looking forward to working with Mouneimne who was used by Nick Mallett as defence coach during his time in Italy.
"Omar Mouneime is the defence and breakdown coach. He was with Western Province and the Stormers, he started out as a collision coach and then developed from there into a defence coach.
"He joined Nick Mallett in Italy where he stayed for two or three years and went right through until the World Cup," he said.
With his coaching staff in place all that is left for Solomons is to get down to the serious business of preparing his squad for their entry into Super Rugby which he admits will be a significant challenge.
"There is a lot of hard work going in, we appreciate that we have got a lot of hard work ahead of us so we have got to work very hard," he said.
By Michael de Vries
