LONG READ Johan Ackermann: ‘Coaching is a calling. You get the opportunity to influence young men’

Johan Ackermann has been here before. Not as coach of the Bulls ahead of a United Rugby Championship final against Leinster in Dublin. That bit is new. But where the details might have changed, the vibe is strangely familiar.

Back in 2016, Ackermann was in charge of the Lions and in three short years had transformed them from Super Rugby outsiders into title contenders. That season, they scored more tries than any other team. They spanked the Crusaders 42-25 in the quarter-finals and then whipped the Highlanders 42-30 a week later to set up a showdown with the Hurricanes in Wellington.

There would be no fairytale. A composed Beauden Barrett and sideways rain and the full weight of the occasion neutralised the Lions’ attacking intent in a 20-3 defeat. They hosted the final a year later, but again fell short; 17-25 to the Crusaders after Kwagga Smith received a red card in the first half.

Now, after three years at Gloucester and four in Japan, Ackermann’s story has come full circle. At the head of a team from South Africa’s Highveld, crossing the world to take on a star-studded club in their own backyard.

The question, then as now, is not whether Ackermann can build a contender. He has proved that. The question is whether he can help one become something more permanent, more decorated, more complete.

It’s not just Ackermann who has questions to answer and circles to close. If anything, the Bulls’ need is more immediate than his. They have spent the URC era close enough to touch the trophy without ever quite lifting it, a side too good to be praised merely for progress but not yet decorated enough to be remembered as champions.

The pressure comes from the fact the Bulls have been in finals and not got over the line. It feels like people are asking, ‘when are you going to change that?’

The beaten finalists in 2022, 2024 and 2025, the Bulls have become familiar with the cruelty of almost. For a union that still measures itself against the great sides of Victor Matfield, Fourie du Preez and Morne Steyn, another final is not enough on its own. Ackermann knows that. He also knows where the pressure really comes from.

“The pressure doesn’t come from the Super Rugby titles they won,” he says. “I think the pressure comes from the fact that the Bulls have been in finals and not got over the line. It feels like people are asking, ‘when are you going to change that?’”

The temptation is to frame this week as an exercise in exorcising ghosts. Ackermann’s ghosts from the Lions. The Bulls’ ghosts from recent URC finals. South African rugby’s long obsession with near-misses and what-ifs. Ackermann has little time for that sort of chat.

“One thing from personal experience in my life is, if you dwell on your mistakes or the things you’ve done wrong and you crucify yourself over and over and you say, ‘I wish I didn’t do this, I wish I didn’t do this,’ you just never get out of that hole,” he says.

“You don’t see opportunity and you miss the next door that must open for you.”

He has spoken to players about last season’s disappointment. He has asked them why they felt the final slipped away. But there is a line between reflection and paralysis.

“If we hammer on the past and ‘we need to fix this and it can’t happen again’, then you go into a negative mindset,” he says. “And we don’t want that.”

The challenge facing Ackermann has not simply been psychological.

Jake White rebuilt the Bulls into contenders. Ackermann inherited a side capable of reaching finals. His task has been to broaden them without blunting the traits that made them successful in the first place.

No other team scored more than the Bulls’ 91 tries this season and their coach has no qualms on how they’ve been accrued. Mauls from five metres out or counter attacks from a different postcode all count the same.

“I had to marry the styles,” says the coach who had built a reputation for his teams’ free-flowing, running rugby. “I had to acknowledge the Bulls’ strengths and that we can play to that. But we do also want to play rugby when the opportunity is there.”

In South Africa, the Bulls have traditionally relied on meaty forwards, indomitable set-pieces and fly-halves who kick the leather off the ball. That remains true, but, as Ackermann points out, that does not mean they’ve parked the bus. No other team scored more than the Bulls’ 91 tries this season and their coach has no qualms on how they’ve been accrued. Mauls from five metres out or counter attacks from a different postcode all count the same.

Perhaps the clearest expression of what he has brought to Pretoria arrived in the semi-final against Glasgow Warriors. After half an hour at Murrayfield, the Bulls trailed 21-3.

“We were almost surprised,” Ackermann admits. “We really had a good build-up. We dealt well with the travelling. We felt we had good captains. The warm-up was good. And then suddenly you’re down 21-3.”

There was no eruption. No flying water bottles. No hairdryer treatment. Instead, there was calm. A try late in the first half reduced the deficit.

“We looked at each other in the coaches’ box and said, ‘You know what? We’re only 21-10 down and we haven’t played well. Our message wasn’t shouting or anything. It was really patient and calm. Let’s go out with the mindset of scoring the first try. If we can do that and go to 21-17, we’re back in it.’ Most of all, I think what players want is just clear messages.”

The Bulls responded. The comeback was completed. The final beckoned. For all the tactical discussions and emotional management that these big games demand, Ackermann’s world view remains remarkably simple.

“Coaching is a calling,” he says. “It’s a platform where you get the opportunity to influence young men.”

Hopefully, the players will say I treated them with respect and I made a difference off the field and in the way I coached.

He talks openly about faith and identity; about refusing to allow results to define him.

“Regardless of winning or losing, my identity is in God,” he says. “That helps me a lot. That gives me a lot of stability in how I approach the game.”

If the Bulls win in Dublin, the immediate legacy will be obvious. The drought will end. The questions that have followed this group from final to final will finally disappear. But when Ackermann was asked how he hoped players would remember him years from now, trophies were not the first thing on his mind.

“Hopefully, the players will say I treated them with respect and I made a difference off the field and in the way I coached,” he says.

Trophies matter. At the Bulls, perhaps more than most places. Still, there is no escaping the opportunity in front of him. Ackermann has built contenders before. Dublin offers him, and the Bulls, the chance to become something more.