But the word now is that Munster have thrown a spanner in those particular works and are so keen to acquire his services that they have offered to fly him to Ireland next week to see if a deal can be done.

One of the more interesting aspects of the rumour is that Erasmus, who is due to leave Munster around Christmas, gave Wessels his first assistant coaching job at the Stormers back in 2008. And he has publicly committed himself to helping Munster to find his replacement when informing them that he would be returning home to take up the Head of Rugby role in South Africa.

Wessels’ more likely option remains the Melbourne Rebels, who were coached by former Munster supremo Tony McGahan up to last June. Negotiations between Wessels and the Rebels are said to be steaming ahead and their chief executive Bade Stephenson claims that they hoped to have an outcome “in the next couple of days. We are at the pointy end.”

Dave Wessels was born in Cape Town. He worked as defensive consultant with the Stormers in 2008 and ’09. He later moved to Australia and was defensive consultant with the Brumbies under Jake White in 2012 and was head coach for the Western Force in the 2017 Super Rugby season.

This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.