Few people probably realise that he represented on occasion Natal in the Nineties. He also played cricket for Natal back in the day. But, now he has been entrusted with the job of taking the Sharks backline attack to a new level. He is Grant Bashford, a proud product of the KZNRU coaching system...
We hooked up with the man they call “Bashie” and his family on site at Norfolk Valley, the new development within Tongaat Hulett’s premier lifestyle estate, Kindlewood in Mt Edgecombe, where the new Bashford home is to be built.
Forty-year-old Grant Warren Bashford is a prime example of a top coach having come through the various ranks within the KwaZulu-Natal Rugby Union. Cutting his teeth as First XV coach at Crusaders for a number of years in the late Nineties, Bashford completed several coaching courses before joining the Union as a staff coach at the turn of the millennium.
His education as coach continued with stints in charge of Natal Under-21 (2002), the Natal Wildebeest in the Vodacom Cup (2003-04) and, eventually, as assistant coach of the Sharks under Dick Muir in both the Vodacom Super 14 and Absa Currie Cup the past few seasons.
“I was born and bred in KwaZulu-Natal, so it’s really nice to be able to follow a career path in rugby at home,” Bashford acknowledges. “I started coaching as a student teacher at Northlands Primary in the late Eighties.
“I was lucky in that Ian Mac was our director of rugby at Northlands, and, later, when I coached at Crusaders, I worked closely with another former Natal coach, Roger Gardner. It was great to be able to follow and learn from people like that.”
“Then, of course, Colin Heard, Garth Giles and the rest of the KZNRU coaching department are doing a really terrific job in bringing coaches through the ranks. I don’t think there’s another province in the country that can offer what we have here at the KZNRU in terms of coaching structure and opportunities for development.”
“And, I’m forever grateful to Dickie and Plum for being prepared to give a local guy like myself an opportunity to work with and learn from them.”
As a player, Bashford earned a solitary cap for Natal – coming on as substitute for Kevin Putt in the 80-6 annihilation of South-Western Districts in a friendly played at Mosselbay in 1993. A member of Crusaders and regular in the Natal “B” strip at the time, he would in all likelihood have made a quite a few more appearances in the revered black and white jumper of Natal had it not been for the presence in Durban at the time of Putt and Springbok scrumhalf, Robert du Preez.
“With some things in life one’s timing is just bad,” Bashford shrugs.
“When Robert joined the Springboks back then, it opened up the door for Putty to get some game time. Remember, back in those days there was no substitution like now; a reserve only played when the frontline player became injured. So, I ended up sitting on the Natal bench for pretty much the entire year.
“But, I was still fortunate just to have been involved during such a great era for Natal rugby. On the cricketing front, Bashford boasts 16 matches for Natal as a right-hand batsman, which harvest three first-class centuries, and wicket-keeper in the early Nineties.
“I think that I was probably more talented as a cricketer, but rugby was my real love,” he admits. “I just enjoyed the rugby camaraderie much more.” Now, with Dick Muir having moved on to assume responsibility for the Springbok backline, Bashford is the main man in charge of the Sharks backs. Even before Muir’s departure, the Sharks, and the backs in particular, have copped quite a bit of flak for their seeming inability to really cut loose and score tries.
Although they finished third to qualify for this year’s Vodacom Super 14, the Sharks recorded only 32 tries – 17 fewer than that raked in by the champion Crusaders. The maladies seemed to continue during the early part of the Currie Cup campaign, but, at the time of writing, the Sharks were beginning to shape up as the attacking machine they could and should be. In two matches, against Griquas in Kimberley (seldom an easy game) and Western Province at Newlands, they ran in no fewer than 11 tries - almost as many as they had scored in the preceding six matches combined!
And, of those 11 tries the backs recorded six.
“In 2006, which was my first year working with Dickie and Plum, the Sharks scored the second most tries (42) in the Super 14,” Bashford recalls.
“What has changed of late is that the introduction of the ELVs has affected backline play, especially from an attacking perspective. The five-metre requirement at the set-piece has transformed the game far more into a gain-line, momentum-based game. And, we struggled to come to terms with that in this year’s Super 14.
“But, things are indeed beginning to come right in the Currie Cup. Especially since the return of Jean Deysel from injury, the forwards have been able to create sufficient go-forward for the backs to be able to play on the front foot.
“One should also bear in mind that, during the first six weeks of the Currie Cup, we were forced to play with five different flyhalves – due to freakish, unforeseen circumstances beyond our control. So, there was no real continuity in the stand-off position.
“But we are more settled now, and the rhythm is starting to come back.” Fizzing to continue upskilling himself, Bashford this year followed in Muir’s footsteps to attend the High Performance Coaches Course at IRANZ, the International Rugby Academy of Murray Mexted in New Zealand.
“ick attended IRANZ last year and came back raving about it,” Bashford explains. “So, he suggested that it would be good to send someone from KZN over every year and I was very excited to go this year.
“The High Performance Coaches Course started a week after our Super 14 semi-final in Australia, so it was ideal in the sense that I could just head across from Sydney to Palmerston North where IRANZ present their courses. And, it was simply awesome.
“You get to spend two weeks with ex-All Blacks and Wallabies specialising in position-specific coaching, while the Coaches Course is facilitated by people like Eddie Jones. They cover every aspect of High Performance coaching and at the end of it all you are involved in practical coaching, working with the group of High Performance players at the academy.
“It is no normal coaches’ course and was most enlightening.”
Mexted, the famous Sky Sport analyst and former All Black great, was favourably impressed with what he saw of Bashford at the HP Coaches Course, which is basically an international coach’s workshop.
“Grant is a student of the game and sees it in depth, which means he lusts for specific knowledge,” Mexted says.
“He will be like a good bottle of red and get better by the year as he feels the right moment to be able to pass on his knowledge. A delightfully inclusive character who will be able to develop ‘the team’ thing – such a vital component of success.”
Ruling the roost over the Sharks backs is an all-consuming task, yet, whenever he has a bit of spare time, Bashford also run the rule over developments at the new Norfolk Valley development at the Kindlewood Estate in Mt Edgecombe – a secure, upmarket lifestyle estate in an excellent location.
“I was introduced to the development by a mate of mine who is involved with it,” Bashford says.
“Having lived in a duplex for the past 10 years or so, the Norfolk Valley development provides an ideal opportunity for my wife and me to upgrade our lifestyle a bit, especially with the kids growing older and needing more space. The development is scheduled for completion from 2009 to 2010 and we’re really excited to have bought into it.”