{"id":87984,"date":"2025-12-19T12:28:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=87984"},"modified":"2025-12-19T12:28:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:28:15","slug":"junior-boks-get-coaching-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=87984","title":{"rendered":"Junior Boks get coaching support"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_87985\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-87985\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-87985\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251219-barend-pieterse-springboks-400x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"200\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-87985\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former Springbok lock Barend Pieterse (Photo: SA Rugby)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>SA Rugby<\/strong> confirmed on Friday that former <strong>Springbok<\/strong> lock <strong>Barend Pieterse<\/strong> had been appointed as a lineout and breakdown consultant to the <strong>Junior Springbok<\/strong> team for three years.<\/p>\n<p>The 46-year-old Pieterse, who appeared for the <strong>Lions<\/strong>, <strong>Cheetahs<\/strong>, and <strong>Eastern Province<\/strong> in his playing days, fills the role previously taken by <strong>Johann Ackermann<\/strong> and will provide support to Junior Bok forwards&#8217; coach <strong>Lumumba Currie<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Pieterse played one match for the Springboks, against the <strong>Barbarians<\/strong> in 2007. He joins from the Lions, where he was employed as a forwards coach. In 2023, he travelled with <strong>Namibia<\/strong> to the <strong>Rugby World Cup<\/strong> in France as an assistant coach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Barend comes highly rated, as well as having previously worked with many of the staff in the Junior Springbok system, so there is a natural fit,&#8221; said <strong>Dave Wessels<\/strong>, General Manager, High Performance at SA Rugby.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em><strong>Ackers<\/strong> <\/em>(<strong>Johan Ackermann<\/strong>) provided valuable expertise in 2025, and we&#8217;re sure that Barend will provide the same in 2026.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pieterse will join the Junior Boks&#8217; training squad in camp in Stellenbosch in the new year as they begin their 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The squad travels to snowy <strong>Georgia<\/strong> in February for a series of matches before <strong>SANZAAR<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>u20 Rugby Championship<\/strong> in Gqeberha, in April and May.<\/p>\n<p>The team will defend their <strong>World Rugby u20 Championship<\/strong> title in Georgia in June and July.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Issued by SA Rugby Communications<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SA Rugby confirmed on Friday that former Springbok lock Barend Pieterse had been appointed as a lineout and breakdown consultant to the Junior Springbok team for three years. The 46-year-old Pieterse, who appeared for the Lions, Cheetahs, and Eastern Province in his playing days, fills the role previously taken by Johann Ackermann and will provide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":87985,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}