Havelock North isn’t home to too many international sports coaches. Not least one who isn’t coaching New Zealand.
Rob Walter recently arrived back from Barbados, after leading South Africa to its first-ever Cricket World Cup final, to find his two boys were on school holidays and the family was moving house.
It was arguably a good distraction, following South Africa’s seven-run loss to India in the ICC Men’s T20 decider. This was a game South Africa seemed destined to win, only to come up agonisingly short.
There are moments Walter replays in his head, where the result could have gone his team’s way. Then he remembers the eight previous world cups where South Africa made the semifinals and couldn’t progress any further.
“I’m probably just oscillating between very proud and very disappointed,’’ Walter told BayBuzz. “Obviously we made history, from a South African point of view, to get there. Then we were so close to getting over the line, but that’s sport.’’
Born in Johannesburg, Walter moved to Hawke’s Bay in 2021 to coach the Central Stags in New Zealand’s domestic competition, having spent the previous five years coaching in Dunedin.
He also enjoyed seven seasons coaching in the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) and doesn’t see a day when he and his family will stop calling Havelock North home.
Once upon a time it would have been unthinkable for a coach not to be resident in the nation that they’re coaching, but such is the proliferation of leagues such as the IPL that Walter says he can do his job from anywhere.
“There wouldn’t be many days when I’m not doing the job, but I’m not physically there, no,’’ said Walter. “I watch a hell of a lot of cricket and, all my players who are playing, I’m watching their performances and I have access to all the footage, so I watch what I need to watch when I need to watch it. I didn’t see my players for six months after the India series [in South Africa] in December last year, until literally the world cup started [in June]. Some of those guys only arrived three days before it started.”
“So a lot of my work is done over the internet, which is okay but it’s not the same. The leagues take up any gaps there is between international tours and our marquee guys are in demand everywhere.’’
Walter took on the South Africa job in January 2023 and never considered a move back ‘home’.
“We came to New Zealand eight years ago now and my motivations are for my family, really,’’ Walter said. “My boys are eight and six and one’s in his third year in school the other one’s second year in school. They’re very happy, my wife’s got a job here and international sport is fickle.
“Do you uproot all three of them and move back to South Africa? It is home in a way, but it’s not the boys’ home. They’ve lived here. To do that with that knowledge it could end abruptly, what do you do then? Do we move back here or where do we go next? To allow the three of them to have stability and for me to travel made a lot more sense.”
Walter’s next assignment with South Africa is a series back in the Caribbean, against the West Indies in August. From there, the team plays matches against Ireland in Abu Dhabi, hosts Pakistan and then plays a tri-series in Pakistan that also includes New Zealand.
“It’s been challenging, obviously, as you’d expect it to be,’’ Walter said of the role. “But, at the end of the day, coaching international sport is what we strive to do, so I’m living the dream in many ways.
“It’s a complex job and you spend a lot of it in the management space, whereas provincially and domestically it’s just you and your assistant, so you do a lot of coaching which is what I love to do.
“So you do a little less coaching, understandably, because you have your coaching staff and that’s what they do, so you’re managing the environment and managing the players.’’
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