Kevin Foote (born 22 March 1979) is a South African professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

football coach, and a former player for the South African sevens national team. He is currently based in Australia and is currently serving as the interim head coach of the

Melbourne Rebels The Melbourne Rebels is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Melbourne. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. They were the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia, until 2017 ...

, after previously serving as their defence coach.

Family and early life

Foote was born in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, where he attended the King Edward VII School. He began studying at Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg before transferring to Stellenbosch University in 1999.

Rugby career

Foote played for the in the Vodacom Cup in 2001. He won 43 caps for the South African sevens team between 2002 and 2004, and captained the team. He played in eight

IRB Sevens World Series The World Rugby Men's Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the com ...

tournaments during the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons. In 2005, Foote had a brief stint with the Sunshine Coast Stingrays club in Queensland, Australia, before he returned to Cape Town to play for UCT (Ikeys), captaining the Ikeys team in the Western Province Super League from 2005 until 2007. After suffering a bad leg break, he retired from playing rugby and set his sights on coaching.

Coaching

Foote was an assistant coach at Ikeys from 2008 to 2010. He was promoted to head coach in 2011, guiding Ikeys to their first

Varsity Cup Varsity Cup is the collective name for four South African rugby union competitions involving the top rugby playing universities in the country. It was launched in 2008, with eight teams participating in the Varsity Cup competition and each univers ...

title. Foote moved to Australia as a defensive consultant to the

Western Force The Western Force is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia, currently competing in Super Rugby Pacific. They previously played in Super Rugby from 2006 until they were axed from the competition in 2017. ...

in 2013, and joined the Force full-time as the backs coach for the

2014 Super Rugby season The 2014 Super Rugby season is the fourth season of the 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition involving teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. For sponsorship reasons, this competition is known as Asteron Life Super Rugby ...

. He was appointed, alongside

David Wessels David Wessels (born 1982), is a South African-Australian professional rugby union football coach. He is currently the head coach of the Melbourne Rebels team that compete in the Super Rugby competition. He was previously head coach at the West ...

, as co-head coach of the Perth Spirit for the inaugural season of Australia's National Rugby Championship in 2014. After a two season gap, Foote returned to the head coach role for Perth Spirit in 2017. In May 2021, Foote was named interim head coach of the

after the departure of

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Foote, Kevin Living people South African rugby union coaches South African rugby union players South Africa international rugby sevens players Rugby union fly-halves 1979 births Melbourne Rebels coaches SWD Eagles players Western Force coaches