Former Springbok and Blue Bulls Assistant Coach Pieter “Slaptjips” Rossouw will take over from star coach Christoff Lötter as the Paarl Gymnasium Director of Rugby.
PE born Christoff Lötter has arguably been the top schoolboy rugby in South Africa for the past few seasons. He first became Gimmies’ Director of Rugby back in 2004 and fulfilled the role of under-19A Assistant Coach. From there he joined the Boland Vodacom Cup team before heading to Italy for a while. He returned to Gim in 2010 to take charge of the under-19A team. During five of those six seasons as Head Coach, the Winelands Co-ed finished their campaign ranked as a national top-5 team. 2013 marked the highest achievement as the unbeaten Bloedwors containing four SA Schools players, were rated as the Number-1 team in the country along with fellow powerhouse Affies from Pretoria. Lötter’s new assignment will be to coach the University of Stellenbosch (Maties) Under-20 rugby team.
43 year-old Pieter Rossouw is a Gimmies Old Boy and therefore understands the values and traditions that the school holds dear. He made a name for himself on the international stage as tall slender attack-minded skilful wing with plenty of vision and a nice step. His successful conversion from player to coach has been partly attributable to his rugby-brain which provides him with the ability to read the game so well and he’s also very good at passing on this knowledge gained through experience to those he now oversees. Apart from working at the Bulls, Rossouw attended the Rugby World Cup as a coach of Namibia.
Good luck to Pieter Rossouw and his family. It was a pleasure having him in our box at Loftus for our last game of 2015 between the Bulls and WP. He will be a great enrichment to Paarl Gim and I am sure he will enjoy his stay at his alma mater.