World Cup or bust
Chris Waldburger explains why Springbok coach Jake White’s World Cup plan could backfire and leave him with egg on his face!
Springbok coach Jake White has unashamedly shaped his entire national coaching stint towards winning the World Cup this year.
Not only is this philosophy disappointing from a rugby point of view, it is also not necessarily going to be the most successful.
Instead of White focussing on honing flair and excellence and on developing true instinctive talent, he has banked on playing purely physical rugby in a hope that the natural genes of South African rugby players can batter the blinding brilliance of the All Blacks and the technical virtuosity of the Australian game.
As an aside, there does not seem to be much of a plan for countering the singular threats that the Irish, French and Argentinean sides may pose.
But what Saturday’s loss proved was that if the Boks do not shape the flow of a Test match to their requisites, they can not win.
It is a boorish Springbok side that relies on Montgomery the banker, Burger the terrible tearaway, and Smit the set-piece rock.
Lose those three, and we have lost everything.
Instead of White developing talent, players like Jean de Villiers, Jaque Fourie, Juan Smith and JP Pietersen freeze up when they play for the Boks.
Habana can continue to thrive because of his scintillating and ever-valuable opportunism.
But the spectacle of our rugby is decreasing, as the Boks play more and more like machines.
And White has demonstrated this flawed approach to his job when he selected a second-string group of players to tour the Tri-Nations.
Below is an up-and-coming line-up that may have better served South African, and rugby, interests, rather than the confused make-up of the squad actually chosen.
Rugby is, after all, entertainment.
15 Bevin Fortuin, 14 Odwa Ndungane, 13 Waylon Murray, 12 Brad Barritt, 11 JP Pietersen, 10 Peter Grant, 9 Heini Adams, 8 Ryan Kankowski, 7 Ernst Joubert (c), 6 Solly Tyibilika, 5 Ross Skeate, 4 Johann Muller, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Bismarck du Plessis, 1 Heinke van der Merwe
16 Gary Botha, 17 Brian Mujati, 18 Barend Pieterse, 19 Kabamba Floors, 20 Jano Vermaak, 21 Adi Jacobs, 22 Brent Russell
Wayne Julies, Akona Ndungane, Deon Carstens, Cobus Grobbelaar, Willem Alberts and Paul Delport to make up the rest of the squad.
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