Time to hear Jake out

The Tri-Nations season has come to an end, some would say a good month or so after it should have.

One of the problems with the Tri-Nations, in comparison to its long established northern hemisphere counterpart tournament, the Six Nations, is that it is so spread out. The fact that the Springboks had to wait a month between the end of the away leg and the start of the home leg, and then play three successive games in as many Saturdays, was problematic.

So too was the long wait the All Blacks had to endure between their penultimate fixture against South Africa in Cape Town and the tournament finale in Brisbane last weekend. In both instances the different nations had to organise extra fixtures to ensure the players stayed sharp, with the Springboks romping to an easy win over Argentina and New Zealand doing likewise to Samoa.

A four team competition would enable the tournament to be more streamlined in that it would remove the situation where there is always one team sitting out. By forcing Australia and New Zealand to travel to Argentina en route to South Africa, it would also make it a fairer competition in that the Australasian itinerary would better equate what the Boks have to face.

But no matter how teams are introduced into the competition, it probably won’t have much impact on the one thing that seems to remain constant – the New Zealand dominance. This was the ninth All Black triumph in the Tri-Nations, and it rather makes a mockery of their continued inability to add to their solitary World Cup trophy, won in the inaugural tournament in 1987.

That they could not get it over the All Blacks this year should be a matter of deep concern to both South Africa and Australia, but particularly so the former. The Kiwis were decimated by defections to the northern hemisphere, and when they started against South Africa in Wellington way back in early July, there was hardly a combination from last year’s World Cup that was still intact.

By comparison with previous high standards, this was far from the best All Black team, and it was a year when the Springboks should have won the Tri-Nations. The depth of talent coming through the South African ranks, plus the level of international experience available, should be pointing towards an extended period where the Boks shouldn’t just be competitive, but maybe even dominant.

That they didn’t show that in this Tri-Nations was mainly because while they went in with the most experienced playing squad, they boasted the least experienced coaching and management team. It has to be a concern that assistant Gary Gold, with his five years at London Irish pre-dating his stint with the Stormers and Western Province, was far and away the most experienced coach.

There was also little evidence of any specialisation, with no dedicated defence or scrumming coach, like there is in many other international and Super 14 teams. When I asked who the Springbok kicking coach was, I was told it was Percy Montgomery, who was still a part of the playing group. This set-up was decidedly amateurish for a top international team who started the year ranked No1 in the world.

The lack of specialisation has to be addressed, for while a good job is being done on some aspects, there are simply not enough people to do the work that needs to be done if the Boks are to become a sum of their parts, which currently they sadly are not.

With World Cup winning coach Jake White also now making it patently obvious in every media interview that he does want back into South African rugby, it would be remiss of the sport’s administrators if they failed to take the hint.

If there is to be a head of coaching or head of rugby, White, with his experience and his knowledge of the current players, is the obvious choice. It would be stupid to appoint someone to the job who has not coached at the highest level, and this is the opportunity for SA Rugby to make up for the mistake they made in failing to retain some semblance of continuity from the World Cup success.

If the rugby administration really has the sport in this country at heart, bringing White back is the obvious thing to do. They must hear him out.