• Allister Coetzee's generally rosy record with the Stormers should keep him in the mix for any SA franchise post.
• A legend of non-racial sport, he could be a high-profile rebalancer in a currently all-white coaching landscape.
• Like Coetzee, Rudolf Straeuli wasn't exactly a smash hit with the Boks … yet he is the Lions' chief executive.

His ill-fated two years in charge of the Springboks have undoubtedly served as a significant "downer" on his expansive coaching CV.

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But was that traumatic period enough to summarily preclude Allister Coetzee - his Stormers charges consistently competitive, never forget, in a lengthy stint at Newlands - from any future consideration as a head coach or director at one of South Africa's six internationally-active franchises?

It is a relevant question, I believe ... especially coming at a time when, in the country's parallel major cricketing corridors, a chapter of fresh, racially-centred tumult is fast taking shape.

Players, coaches and administrators there, and particularly some of the most prominent and illustrious ones of colour, have been increasingly uniting under the principles of the Black Lives Matter movement to demand a fairer shake, if you like, from a landscape they still perceive to be dictated by a privileged elite of the not too distant past.

What price a spill-over in this rebellion of sorts to domestic rugby?

It is a stark, inescapable fact, for example, that all of the half-dozen first-class franchises (Lions, Bulls, Stormers and Sharks, officially still active in Super Rugby; Cheetahs and Kings in PRO14) have white head coaches, and some of them still inexperienced and largely unproven.

"Toetie" Coetzee, now 57, is one of those, by contrast, of whom it can truly be said he has gone through the rugby grinder … and isn't there a solid case for suggesting the school of hard knocks is perhaps the most educative and mind-broadening of them all?

He has been out of high-profile work since late April, when he left his head-coach role at Japan's Canon Eagles after a two-year stint, with the club lying mid-table (ninth) in the 16-team Top League - three wins, three reverses - when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

It would be natural enough for some observers to automatically nowadays muster an image of "failure" whenever the name of Coetzee crops up, purely based on his often harrowing two years at the Springbok tiller between 2016 and 2017.

As much as his win record of 44 percent was never going to find favour with followers of a superpower that would soon enough - and famously, at RWC 2019 - burst back to life under the tutelage of Rassie Erasmus, specific, gory outcomes did Coetzee no favours.

He oversaw the lamentable 0-57, record-breaking away loss to the All Blacks, a nearly as bad 15-57 home horror show, a 3-38 submission to Ireland and an embarrassing first-time loss to Italy.

But Coetzee wasn't unceasingly bad, either: Detractors may conveniently overlook a hopeful period at the start of his second season in charge when the Boks won five in a row - a 3-0 home series triumph over France, and successive Rugby Championship victories over Argentina.

In each of those five matches, even if the spell was to prove a decidedly false dawn, South Africa did not fail to post a minimum of 35 points in the "for" column, suggesting a sustained ease of attacking sprightliness.

Remember also that one of the Eastern Cape's favourite sporting sons had been on the coaching support panels of prior, profoundly successful Bok eras: Including then-IRB Team of the Year laurels in 2004 (Tri-Nations champions) and 2007 (World Cup winners).

World sport is littered with examples of coaches who have prospered at first-class level, yet not quite cut it when then promoted to ultimate responsibility with the national-team baton.

Coetzee may simply fall into that well-stocked category … and just as many of those people shrug and "move along", often reinventing themselves anew one tier back downward.

I was a close witness - already with Sport24 and Cape Town-based - to his entire spell as head coach of Western Province (2008-15) and the Stormers (2010-15).

An indelible memory, really, is the almost unfailing way he kept both teams as "contenders" over those eight or so years, which is not something every sporting mastermind can boast.

He took Province to five Currie Cup finals in eight years, including two trophy-hoists, after a prior spell just before his time in which they had not graced the showpiece even once between 2002 and 2007.

As for the Stormers, Coetzee could be said with some conviction to have been a so-close-but-no-cigar figure in title terms, as his teams got routinely used to winning conferences or even topping the overall table after ordinary-season rosters, only to trip at knockout-phase hurdles.

The Stormers, in short, were as good a "bridesmaids" team as any other hard-luckers in the tournament's history, including compatriots the Lions, who were losing finalists three times in a row between 2016 and 2018.

On his watch, the Stormers prevailed in two-thirds of their matches: Coetzee's win percentage was a fraction under 66.

That very largely translates to "winning rugby".

Say what you like about the team's devotion, under his guidance, to suffocating defence more than out-and-out flair: They pleased the bean counters as Super Rugby crowds of 40 000-plus were common at Newlands in the "Toetie years".

He was popular with his squad and it was, in broad terms, a buzzing, happy time in the Capetonian fold, helped by having charismatic on-field leaders like the suitably "chilled" Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger.

Coetzee left a good impression on the local scribes, too: He was open, honest, clear-cut in his match-week thinking and always prepared to go the extra mile in transparency with them, even if it frequently meant spending a full hour after his official media briefings to assist with further one-on-ones for individual journalists.

He is a good unifier, if you like, into the bargain ... hardly unimportant in a sometimes volatile, uniquely South African context.

As a scrumhalf of renown, he was an icon of the non-racial SARU fold during apartheid times, and then graced the Eastern Province jersey at Currie Cup level as a veteran figure when democracy dawned.

Here's something to consider: Springbok rugby plumbed more than a few depths in a period well before Coetzee came along as head coach ... the Rudolf Straeuli years, complete with Kamp Staaldraad, an insipid 2003 World Cup and overall win percentage only a few notches higher than Coetzee's.

But it didn't preclude Straeuli from clawing his way back - to his credit - to rugby respectability; he is currently in a high-powered position as CEO with the Lions.

Coetzee, similarly, does not deserve to be all-embracingly hung, drawn and quartered just because of his Springbok head-coach shortcomings.

History proves he has bag-loads to offer in a franchise or provincial context.

It would be short-sighted to brand him a spent force.

I, for one, would love to see him back in a significant, home-soil gig ...

*Follow our chief writer on Twitter: @RobHouwing