"Former Springbok coach Jake White has again signalled interest in the England head coaching position.
Stuart Lancaster on Wednesday stepped down as England coach after a torrid Rugby World Cup which saw the hosts knocked out of the tournament at the pool stages after defeats to Wales and Australia.
Bookmakers have made White favourite to replace Lancaster and when asked whether he would be interested, the South African told Sky Sports:
"If they genuinely think a foreign coach is the right way forward and it is genuine they think it is me, it would be naive of me to say I was not interested."
White, who coached the Springboks to the 2007 World Cup title, is currently in charge of French Top 14 side Montpellier"
Why do we say we live in a dream world in this case and why the sympathy for England. Let me be more explicit:-
* Jake White was appointed as Springbok coach and although his winning rate in tests was not much to brag about - bar in his first year as coach - he was in charge when the Springboks won the WC in 2007. There was one saving grace in this case for White - he realised that he knew nothing about backline play and appointed Eddie Jones to help him out in 2007.
* Another problem with White has been his poor image as a PR and his constant rather public struggle with the powers to be. It was no secret that he was unpopular with the rugby authorities in SA and no surprise that SARU jumped at the opportunity not to renew his contract
* After doing odd jobs Meyer took up a four year contract with the Brumbies, After years of being highly competitive - the Brumbies had an odd poor year and was in the process of team re-building when they appointed him as head coach. Realizing that he was not in any way a backline expert coach the Brumbies did the wise thing by appointing Larkham as backline coach. White did his normal and recruited a number of SA players (eg the Smit brothers and Oosthuizen) and tried to bring back Clyde Rathbone into the Brumbies set-up. The fact is that the Brumbies recovered their competitiveness - but whether that was entirely die to White is not all that clear. What is clear is that White left the job halfway through his contract period "to be nearer to his children" an took up th coaching position with the Sharks.
* This is where things start to fo sour for White, He did not try to build up the squad of the Sharks and as a matter of fact caused serious discord in the team itself when he got rid of Daniel as a captain or even player and put Fransie Steyn on a pedestal. By some luck the Sharks ended up top of the SA Conference and managed to beat the Highlanders in the quarter-finals - after losing to that team by a wide margin in the round robin stage of the tournament. That meant a semi-final against the Crusaders where they lost the game by a wide margin as well. That is not where White's problems with the Sharks ended. White had no proven back-up coach for backline play and the game played by the Sharks was a version of Stampkar rugby - driving away the spectators from Kings Park. The main problem was in fact Fransie Steyn - who made sure that the backline of the Sharks was completely neutralized. Instead of trying to rebuild the Sharks squad - White did the exact opposite - the relationships within the squad deteriorated. The end result was inevitable - the Sharks players refused to extent their contracts with the franchise if White stays on as coach and management could not take the situation anymore. They asked White to reign after a year in charge.
* That left White jobless and he took u a temporary job with the Togo national team - obviously not a suitable job for the very ambitious White.
* That was followed by the appointment of White as Head Coach of Montpellier this year. White recruited SA players like it is unbelievable and started of the Montpellier competing in the Top 14 tournament - again without a proper backline supporting coach. The result was inevitable - a series of average performances ending up with a massive defeat in their last Top 14 game against Toulon. Montpellier is going nowhere fast in Top 14 - so White wants the England job with a sore heart.
Will with the record above White makes a decent success with his coaching if appointed as England coach? There are serious question marks about that one. He may make a success - but it depends entirely if they could find a strong backline coach that will enforce full control over the backline component of the game. If not - White will fail - and all teams opposing England will have a ball.
