There are coaches who spend the week before a season obsessing over lineout calls, defensive systems and selection headaches. Phiwe Nomlomo is doing all of that too. The difference is that he seems to be enjoying it.
The Vodacom Bulls XV Carling Currie Cup coach is staring down a campaign packed with uncertainty: a squad sheet full of unfamiliar names, a fixture list designed by someone clearly fond of frequent-flyer miles, and the inevitable player movement that comes with sharing resources across a franchise competing on multiple fronts.
Somehow, he sounds delighted by all of it.
If there’s a guiding philosophy behind Nomlomo’s approach, it’s simple: embrace the unknown. Get comfortable in the chaos. Figure it out on the run.
It’s also, handily, his entire game plan for the Carling Currie Cup.
Ask Nomlomo about his squad and the first thing he’ll tell you, cheerfully, is that half the names on the team sheet are unlikely to be recognised by supporters. Between club stalwarts, promising juniors and a sprinkling of senior, capped players, this is a group still introducing itself to itself.
He’s unbothered.
“It’s an exciting squad,” he insists. “Really, really exciting. I think we’re going to play a good brand of rugby.”
Whether that’s coach-speak or genuine conviction, you sense he actually believes it, mostly because he’s had no choice but to believe it for months.
That’s because this year’s Carling Currie Cup draw has been, in Nomlomo’s words, a hand of cards you simply have to play. Three away games open the campaign: Sanlam Boland Kavaliers, then Suzuki Griquas, then a Fidelity ADT Lions side that has contested the last two Carling Currie Cup finals.
Three consecutive away trips to start a season is the rugby equivalent of trying to assemble flat-pack furniture with half the instructions missing. You don’t get to choose the circumstances. You just get on with it.
Vodacom Bulls XV supporters will remember last season’s version of this story rather too well. The team started like a runaway train, prompting Nomlomo to be asked during one press conference whether the competition was already effectively won.
He said no, smartly and correctly, as it turned out.
The wheels came loose not long afterwards.
So what changed for round two?
Mostly, honesty about the inevitable.
Nomlomo and Vodacom Bulls Director of Rugby Johan Ackermann have had, in his words, “some really good meetings” about exactly when the squad might be stretched by call-ups, injuries and scheduling conflicts.
One particularly awkward calendar quirk sees the Springboks taking on the All Blacks on 15 August, with the Vodacom Bulls XV hosting the Toyota Cheetahs just a day later.
Somebody, somewhere, is always going to be needed in two places at once.
“It’s all hands on deck,” he shrugs, “and that’s why there are a few names in this squad that people might not recognise. I can tell you, it’s exciting.”
If there’s a unifying theory of Nomlomo, it’s this: don’t fight the chaos, manage it.
Ask him about the inevitable revolving door of players – senior call-ups, returning bodies and Vodacom URC squad members filtering in and out – and he doesn’t flinch.
Rival franchises like Griquas will enjoy the luxury of settled combinations and established rhythm, he concedes. The Vodacom Bulls XV, by contrast, may spend much of the tournament figuring out exactly who is walking through the door each week.
Rather than resent it, he has decided to lean all the way in.
“We’re comfortable with things not always going exactly to plan,” he says, “and that’s actually what we need, because it’s the same in a match. When the game plan doesn’t quite go the way you want, how do you adjust?”
It’s either the most Zen thing a rugby coach has said all year, or an extremely elegant way of saying: we have no idea who’s available in week three, so let’s just enjoy the ride.
That same “control the chaos” mantra extends to his vision for the competition itself: end-to-end, attacking rugby played by players given licence to show what they can do, with just enough structure underneath to stop everything descending into complete mayhem.
“There’s a plan within the chaos,” he says. “You control the chaos. Find yourself within it, and be comfortable there.”
His own transformation has been rather more visible.
The dreadlocks are gone.
After years with the hairstyle, Nomlomo quietly decided it was time for a change.
“There isn’t a massive story behind it,” he says. “It had just run its course, and I felt it was time, so off it went.”
Like much of his approach to coaching, there is something refreshingly uncomplicated about the decision. No grand reinvention. Just a recognition that sometimes it’s time to turn the page.
Before the serious rugby begins, there is one final stop: a warm-up fixture away in Namibia this weekend against what’s being billed as a Namibia XV.
It may not feature every international available, but Nomlomo isn’t expecting an easy evening.
“A darn strong side,” is how he describes the challenge.
The bigger objective, however, has little to do with the scoreboard.
More important than the result is getting a group of relative strangers out of Loftus and into each other’s company. Some have trained alongside one another for months without really knowing each other.
Namibia, in Nomlomo’s mind, is less a rugby trip than a team-building exercise that happens to include a match.
“What we really want,” he says, “is to come back as a brotherhood.”
A captain has not yet been named, although Nomlomo admits the coaches already have a strong idea of who it might be. Don’t expect that particular mystery to remain unsolved for much longer.
If you want to understand how a coach builds a squad capable of handling constant upheaval while still promising entertaining rugby, it helps to know how Nomlomo spends his time away from the training field.
He describes himself simply as a curious person.
Not narrowly curious about rugby, either.
He’ll wander into a third-division club while overseas, not because of the standard of play but because useful insights often come from unexpected places. Conversations with people from the NFL and AFL have provided ideas he has taken back home. A friend recently convinced him to spend downtime learning how to make pasta from scratch.
Not because he’s chasing culinary greatness.
Because the principle appeals to him.
Throw yourself into unfamiliar situations often enough and you never quite know what you’ll bring back.
It’s a fitting philosophy for a coach leading a Carling Currie Cup campaign built on shifting sand.
Phiwe Nomlomo doesn’t sound like somebody worried about the uncertainty that lies ahead. He sounds like somebody who has already decided uncertainty is where the interesting stuff happens.
Over the next few months, with away trips, new combinations and more than a little unpredictability, he’ll find out if he’s right.
And if his team adopts the same attitude, the ride should be entertaining.
VODACOM BULLS XV CARLING CURRIE CUP SQUAD
Forwards: Abri van der Westhuysen, Abongile Nonkotwana, Arnu Gustafson, Cephas van Biljon, Chinedu Amadi, Damian Baker, Dian Coetzee, Dieter Schubert, Dylan Smith, Jon Hobson, Esethu Mnebelele, Heinrich Theron, Jaundre Schoeman, Jean Erasmus, JJ Theron, Jonathan Eloff, Junior Pokomela, KB Maake, Mawande Mdanda, Migael Turner, Nama Xaba, Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg, Oelof de Meyer, Ranon Fourie, Sandisiwe Msengana, Sintu Manjezi, Ulrich van der Westhuizen.
Backs: Aka Boqwana, Brooklyn Newman, Christiaan Viok, Christan Vorster, Daniel van der Merwe, Hakeem Kunene, Hendre Schoeman, JJ Motlhodi, Ian van der Merwe, Lindsey Jansen, Marnus Rademeyer, Neil le Roux, PA van Niekerk, Pieter van der Merwe, Riwan van Aswegen, Riyaad Bam, Ruan Enslin, Ruben Groenewald, Unathi Mlotshwa, Viaan Mentoor, Melt Viljoen, Demitre Erasmus, Devon Williams, Keagan Johannes, Shaun Schümann, Thomas Beling.
Vodacom Bulls XV – Carling Currie Cup 2026 Fixtures
19 July – Sanlam Boland Kavaliers vs Vodacom Bulls XV
25 July – Suzuki Griquas vs Vodacom Bulls XV
1 August – Fidelity ADT Lions vs Vodacom Bulls XV
8 August – Vodacom Bulls XV vs Airlink Pumas
16 August – Vodacom Bulls XV vs Toyota Cheetahs
21 August – Vodacom Bulls XV vs DHL Stormers XXIII
28 August – Hollywoodbets Sharks vs Vodacom Bulls XV
Playoffs
- Semifinals: 4–6 September
- Final: 12 September
