Watch VideoNeil de Bruin’s journey: From reluctant coach to Blue Bulls mastermind

Neil de Bruin, the Blue Bulls’ attack coach, who joined the Pretoria side during a mid-season shake-up Neil de Bruinnever planned to become a rugby coach. Growing up, it was in fact the one thing he had been determined not to become. And how then could it have been otherwise, when sport was ever-present at home, with his father coaching rugby and his mother netball?

“As a rebellious teen, literally the last thing I wanted to do was what my parents did,” said De Bruin, who grew up mainly in Durban, moved to Kimberley for high school, and was now living just south of Pretoria. But the promise to himself to never end up on the other side of the white line was now sharply juxtaposed with where he finds himself today, calling the shots in theBlue Bulls’ attack. De Bruin was appointed to the Bulls’ coaching staff in December, joiningJohan Ackermann’s newly assembled team during a mid-season reset atLoftus Versfeld.

His arrival came as part of a wider shake-up meant to freshen up the Bulls’ attacking play after, depending on who you ask, an embarrassing run of results, with De Bruin given responsibility for the backline and attack. After 10 rounds of theUnited Rugby Championship(URC), the Bulls find themselves inside the playoff spots at seventh on the table. It is still a far cry from their previous performances in the URC, which have seen them qualify for three of the four finals of the competition since the introduction of South African teams. That “accident”, the father of three said, came while he was still playing, when he was asked to help out and thought nothing of it at the time.