We need Jake White.
White has won a World Cup. That alone should be an achievement that sets him apart from Cheika. The difficulty and importance of that single dot point on his resume makes him an impossible candidate to refuse. His 2007 Springboks team focused on having impenetrable defence, direct attack and dominant forward play with territory the vital key to victory.
White left the rugby scene altogether before joining the Brumbies in 2013. He implemented the same style of direct, defensive, territory-based rugby in an extremely short period of time. The result was immediate success and a Brumbies side reaching the Super Rugby grand final via an away semi-final victory against the Bulls. The key here was the immediate success, and his ability to implement a effective, simple coaching strategy in less than a year.
The following season he did the same again with a different team. He walked into the Sharks organisation and made immediate changes by naming Bismarck du Plessis as captain and announcing Pat Lambie as fly-half and Francois Steyn as inside centre.
He took them to the semi-finals despite their previous eighth place finish. This achievement is underrated as Pat Lambie, their form player, was ruled out for the season in Round 6.
Jake White will walk into the Wallabies set up and will be able to effectively communicate his coaching strategy in a shorter amount of time than Michael Cheika could. It is a simpler strategy, one that is easily to translate to results on the pitch and won that strengthens defence and wins World Cups.
I can’t wait for Cheika to coach the Wallabies. I can’t wait to see our expansive style take fans back to the days of Mark Ella and David Campese. I can’t wait to see a coach sit at the helm for a long amount of time and create a dynasty to rival Rod McQueen’s.
I just want to see it happen after Jake White delivers immediate results for us over the next 11 months.
