The beginning Mallett once again left South Africa in 1985, this time for France, where he played and coached rugby for seven years until 1992 before eventually returning to South Africa in 1994 and taking a job as Head of the False Bay Rugby Club until 1995. Between 1995 and 1996, Mallett took up the role of head coach of the
Boland Cavaliers before being appointed assistant coach to the Springboks in 1996 and finally getting the job of Springbok Coach in 1997.
Coach of Springboks (1997–2000) Between August 1997 and December 1998, under Mallett's guidance, the Springboks went on a record winning streak of 17 consecutive test wins. As part of the unbeaten run the Springboks won the
Tri Nations Series undefeated and beat several teams by record margins, including a 52–10 against
France in Paris, a 68–10 win over
Scotland in Edinburgh, a 33–0 defeat of
Ireland and a 96–13 against
Wales. The run ended when the Springbok team was defeated by
England at
Twickenham at the end of a long tour on 5 December 1998. The relationship between Mallet and
Gary Teichmann, one of South Africa's most successful team captains ever (with 36 wins), began to sour and Teichman was controversially excluded from the
1999 Rugby World Cup squad. Mallet looked for a new captain, first turning to
Corné Krige then
Rassie Erasmus,
Joost van der Westhuizen and
André Vos for a solution. In the end, despite the internal instability in the squad, the Springboks managed four consecutive wins and were finally knocked out of the championship in the
semi-final by eventual winners Australia. Despite his team's relatively mediocre results of 8 wins and 5 losses in 1999, the Springboks still managed to break more records, beating
Italy 101–0 and England in the quarter-final 44–21, with
Jannie de Beer kicking a world-record five drop goals in that game. In 2000, Mallett accused the
South Africa Rugby Football Union (SARFU) of "greed" for selling Tri-Nations championship tickets at inflated prices. He had alienated the SARFU executive, and on 27 September he resigned as national coach at the start of a disciplinary hearing began into allegations that his comments had brought the game into disrepute. Some fans, upset by how he had treated Teichman and his team's sudden poor performance, were also keen to see him go. In spite of his team's relatively poor performance and the internal strife that marred his final years as coach, Mallett remains one of South Africa's most successful coaches ever, having won 27 of the 38 tests played under his guidance and rewriting the record books several times
Stade Français (2002–04) Mallett moved back to France as coach for the Paris club
Stade Français, which he led to two consecutive
French domestic title wins in 2003 and 2004 before returning to South Africa where he accepted the job of Director of Rugby at
Western Province. Initially there was speculation that he might coach the Springbok team again, but those rumours were quashed by the appointment of
Jake White as the new South African coach. Mallet was linked with the position of England coach after the coerced resignation of
Andy Robinson in 2006, a position that eventually went to
Brian Ashton. In 2007 Mallett became coach of
Italy.
Italy (2007–11) On 3 October 2007, Mallett replaced Frenchman
Pierre Berbizier as "CT" ("Technical Commissioner", i.e. coach) of the
Italy national rugby union team. His
Six Nations debut was fairly impressive; Italy were defeated by
Ireland 11–16 in the first game, but came close to victory against
Jonny Wilkinson's England team. Italy lost also against
Wales and
France. In those matches he gave
Andrea Marcato and
Alberto Sgarbi their debuts'. In the final game, Mallett's team beat
Scotland 23–20, thanks to Marcato's late drop goal. However, Italy won the
wooden spoon because their points difference was worse than Scotland's. During the summer test matches, he got a good result against
South Africa, the world champions at the time, in
Cape Town, despite Italy losing 0–26. In
Córdoba Italy beat
Argentina for the first time thanks to
Leonardo Ghiraldini's try and a late penalty by Marcato. He also coached the
Barbarians against the
All Blacks in December 2009 with the 'Baa-Baas' winning 25–18. In 2010 Mallet coached the Barbarians to victory over South Africa. In the
2010 Six Nations, Mallett guided Italy to a 16–12 win against Scotland. Despite this victory, Italy's only win in the competition, Italy still finished last because Scotland's points difference was just one better. In the
2011 Six Nations Championship, Italy beat
France by 22–21 in arguably their best victory to date.
Retirement (2011–present) In November 2011, after the World Cup in New Zealand, Nick Mallett's contract as head coach of Italy expired and he returned to Cape Town with Frenchman
Jacques Brunel taking over the Italy job. Mallett has stated that he wishes to spend time with his family in South Africa, despite being briefly linked to the position as coach of England following
Martin Johnson's resignation. ==References==