Calm heads must prevail

South Africans woke up on Sunday morning to the knowledge that the country’s rugby was looking a lot rosier on the playing fields than it has for some time.

Just a few hours after the excellent win over France that clinched the first home series win against that nation in the post-isolation era, the South African under-21 side clinched the Under-21 Rugby World Championship. Earlier this year the SA under-19 side did the same in their tournament. So SA is in the unique position of being champion in both age-group levels.

Springbok coach Jake White has proved an adept spotter of talent. In his 16 months in charge of the team he has shown an astuteness that many of his predecessors have lacked in terms of nurturing the talent available and bringing the identified players through at the right time.

Why then, when everything should be so positive, are we once again seeing the positive headlines juxtaposed by negative ones. The Bok win over France has not been celebrated like it should, neither has the under-21 triumph. Instead the nation sits on this Monday waiting to hear if White will still be coach on Tuesday.

No man should be seen as bigger than the game and it is never acceptable for a coach to hold a gun to his employer’s head. This is also South Africa, so there will always be a measure of political intent in the selection of the national team, and no coach will ever be completely free of interference. White surely knew that when he took over.

But then no-one in their right mind can possibly accuse White of falling short when it comes to the goals of transformation. If there are those who do, then they have unrealistic expectations and have no concept of what is needed to create a winning national rugby team and a winning culture.

White, when he says he wants clear guidelines to work from, as opposed to having the goalposts shifted ever Saturday, is only asking for what any decent man would ask for. He wants to be fair to his players. As he says, if an injury to wing Bryan Habana means that a centre like De Wet Barry has to be dropped to accommodate another player of colour in Wayne Julies, then it is right that Barry knows this is so and that the rest of the team know that this is so.

And if so-called “coloured” players are going to be classified as less black than the “black African” players, as appears to becoming increasingly the case, then that must also be spelled out.

It is hard enough to coach an international sporting team without having to contend with all these subsidiary issues. That they are mostly unavoidable is what makes the Springbok coaching job the hardest in world rugby, but the fudging of the issue and lack of clarity on what is needed and required by the administrators just makes the job impossible.

South African Rugby Union president Brian van Rooyen’s response to the issue, at least before the test on Saturday, was that “we will just have to find another coach”. Well, I have news for him: There are not too many decent coaches who would work within the parameters White is forced to work with, and even those who would be prepared initially to put up with it, would ultimately find themselves getting to the point that White has arrived at now.

Van Rooyen asked the question in the Saturday press whether White would have left out Schalk Burger in Cape Town like Solly Tyibilika was left out in Port Elizabeth. This is a question that makes no sense. Burger was last year’s world player of the year. While Tyibilika has a lot of promise, he is not at that level yet.

White has done well to blood him, he clearly also sees a lot more in the flanker than his former employers at the Natal Sharks did. Tyibilika does have a future under White, he must just be used at the right times and properly managed.

And let’s also get real about the problems White has had to face in selecting other black players who were not used properly at provincial level. Remember the outcry when Jhongi Nokwe and Tim Dullane were selected out of obscurity for last year’s November tour?

White was pilloried, and has been unable to retain those players for the simple reason that they are not being selected by their provinces. Van Rooyen can hardly expect White to load his team with black players when the feeder levels are not providing him with the available talent.

Lawrence Sephaka was a selection for the second French test that White was criticised for. Yet Chester Williams, Van Rooyen’s personal first choice as Springbok coach last year, could only use him sparingly for the Cats in the recent Super 12.

South Africa wants a racially representative Springbok team, but then, as the atmosphere at EP Rugby Stadium and afterwards in Port Elizabeth suggested on Saturday night, the country also loves a winning team. The best way for the game to grow in South Africa is for the team to win while continuing the transformation to the multi-cultural and multi-racial unit that the under-19 and under-21 teams are already.

Of all the top coaches in South Africa, White has by far the best record when it comes to getting that fine balancing act right. It is only correct then that his employers trust him to get on with the business as he sees fit, just as his fierce adversaries in New Zealand, Australia, England and France are.

If he fails, then SARU have the right to axe him. But then there must be good rugby reasons, and his transformation efforts must have been a patent failure. So far he fails on neither count, and must be granted a measure of freedom so that he can be properly judged.

When comparisons are drawn between Burger and Tyiblika, then you wonder whether the people in high places really understand the game. The Springbok team needs to be coached by someone who does have this understanding. SA rugby must beware of making the same mistake it did in 2000 when Nick Mallett was dropped because of a public utterance about the price of test tickets, and not because of any failure in his coaching.