{"id":620424,"date":"2026-06-04T08:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T08:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/620424\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T08:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T08:14:14","slug":"bernard-jackman-jacques-nienaber-was-way-more-coherent-than-leo-cullen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/620424\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard Jackman: Jacques Nienaber was ‘way more coherent’ than Leo Cullen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Ireland and Leinster hooker Bernard Jackman \u2018couldn\u2019t argue\u2019 with the points Jacques Nienaber made during his dramatic press conference earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

The former Springboks boss became the second big-hitter from the province after Leo Cullen to vent his anger.<\/p>\n

Nienaber<\/a> stated that he didn\u2019t feel \u2018valued\u2019 at the Irish giants and defended his methods, while hitting out at his portrayal in the media.<\/p>\n

Nienaber \u2018had his facts\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was a different context than Leo\u2019s one, it was way more coherent. He had his facts, he argued his point, he explained pretty well,\u201d Jackman<\/a> said on the RTE Rugby podcast.<\/p>\n

The former Springboks head coach also had a back-and-forth with a journalist, but Jackman insisted that it did not overstep the mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was all logical, respectful and made his points. I don\u2019t argue with any of the points; the fans do get a coach sacked. The fans do get you sacked; he\u2019s 100 per cent right there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that only 9,000 people were there on Saturday is worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nienaber\u2019s dissatisfaction with the journalist centred around a piece written in January 2025 where he opined that Leinster<\/a> had done a \u201cdeal with the devil\u201d by bringing the former Springboks head coach to Dublin, but Jackman had a theory about the South African\u2019s frustration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I wonder is a friend of mine, who understands South Africans very well, thought maybe the line, \u2018make a deal with the devil\u2019, from a religious point of view, that is something that could stir it up more for South Africans,\u201d the ex-front-rower said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just see it as a throwaway remark \u2013 the fact he remembered that and quoted that shows that has annoyed him for a long time and sat on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was a fascinating press conference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackman only really took issue with one thing as the respected pundit doesn\u2019t believe that the media would ultimately impact his position.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, he\u2019s saying the media tell the fans and the fans then get you sacked, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe media, I would like to hope, is looking with their own eyes and writing pieces or narratives around what they see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland great defends Jacques Nienaber over criticism which \u2018lacks context\u2019 after South African\u2019s bombshell comments<\/a><\/p>\n

Nienaber\u2019s role and responsibility<\/p>\n

While it was at times a tense press conference, Nienaber also went into plenty of detail, talking about how he views the defence and the roles and responsibilities of the coaching team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI especially thought it was really interesting around his actual role as senior coach and I thought he explained that in real detail,\u201d Jackman added.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, what he said was, he\u2019s given the times for the week in terms of how much time on feet on a Monday, how much time on the feet on a Wednesday\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cHe allocates the time, so Robin McBryde gets, whatever, half-an-hour to do set-piece, Tyler Bleyendaal a certain amount of time for attack, and then obviously he does the defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he did say, which I thought was really interesting, was he doesn\u2019t tell Robin McBryde how to win lineout ball, he doesn\u2019t tell Tyler Bleyendaal how to attack. The reality is that would fit in with the senior coach.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the head coach, that is their job. Their job is to make sure how they defend a lineout is aligned to how they defend in general and how they win lineouts and scrums is aligned to how they want to attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balance between possession and territory, and where you\u2019re going to kick and how often you\u2019re going to kick.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody needs to co-ordinate that and I felt from what I listened to was that he doesn\u2019t co-ordinate it all in terms of how it all joins up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s certainly how I read it, that he co-ordinated the logistics of how it plays out, but he isn\u2019t responsible for the overall game plan per se, which makes sense how it looks on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Opinion: Jacques Nienaber should walk if he truly believes bombshell claim<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Ireland and Leinster hooker Bernard Jackman \u2018couldn\u2019t argue\u2019 with the points Jacques Nienaber made during his dramatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134590,348,65321,65320,50,5903,101,56,54,16296,55],"class_list":["post-620424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-bernard-jackman","tag-home-page","tag-jacques-nienaber","tag-leinster","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-rugby-championship","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}