Jake White: Let me clear up some things
The flight back to South Africa gave me time to reflect on a pretty intense couple of days, and believe me, I’ve had a few over the years.
Now, there are so many versions of our Northampton sojourn doing the rounds. What I will say is this. It’s early days. We have entered into a competition that other clubs have been playing for nearly three decades. We still have our L-plates on. After the results on the weekend, privately, it was agreed that the knockouts need a week’s break in between round 16 and the last eight. From a logistical point of view, I must applaud that. Decision-makers have seen that it isn’t fair for a team to travel those distances with that tight turnaround. Indeed, perhaps those scorelines needed to happen for people to understand the schedule’s imperfections.
I saw Ronan O’Gara was very humble and measured with his post-match comments after the Leinster game, but I ask you, how does a two-time winner go from being the best team in the tournament to losing 40-13 and not scoring a point in the second-half in Dublin? Can you go from majestic to mediocre in that space of time? No, it’s got to do with traipsing to Cape Town and back again. It comes at a cost.
Contrary to popular opinion, not for a second was I trying to undermine the competition’s integrity. I want to make that clear. I didn’t put all that work in in the Pool stages just to throw it away. In my 31 years of coaching, I have never entered a competition I haven’t wanted to win.
I understand there was a lot of talk about us fielding a Bulls B-team. I get it. I understand people want to see the best players play all the time. In principle I agree with that, however, if you want to see the best players all the time, something in the game’s calendar has to give.
I should also explain that EPCR ask you to register 55 players at the start of the season, so why is it a sin to use the squad you’ve registered? Will there be a new caveat saying you can’t use your wider squad in a play-off game? As the season’s crowded schedule unfolded, I thought that was the game I could use some fresh faces, to give it a crack.
We have a lot of plates to spin in South Africa. We play in the Currie Cup and as part of the SA Rugby’s participation agreement, I’m not sure everyone appreciates that all our players need eight consecutive weeks off. If you’re involved in the URC, Champions Cup and Currie Cup, with injuries, budgetary constraints and other curveballs, you have to make decisions that aren’t always popular.
It made me think about how professional rugby is stuck in Groundhog Day. The more you move forward, the more you have to look back. Rewind to 1995 and the birth of the game as a professional entity. When the deal to start Super Rugby was being thrashed out, it’s been well-documented that Rupert Murdoch would only sign the broadcast deal if he had the keys to the kingdom. So Francois Pienaar was going to get the signatures of the Springboks, Sean Fitzpatrick was going to get the signatures of the All Blacks and Phil Kearns the names of the Wallabies. It was the equivalent of the Kerry Packer breakaway tournament in cricket, and Murdoch’s Sky Sports eventually supercharged the move from amateur to professional.
It reminds me of what the French philosopher Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”. Essentially, ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’. The reason those signatures were needed was financial. If the money men were going to put serious cash into the competition, if the sponsors were going to get on board and if the broadcasting rights were going to come in from all corners of the world, he had to have all the best talent available. Not half of it. Not teams missing. Sky wanted it all. Look at what LIV Golf is doing in golf right now. There are no half-measures when you want to dominate a sport. The modus operandi in elite sport has always been the same – secure the best players.
Currently, the dispersal of talent is fragmented. Are the best players in the world playing in the same competition? Of course not. I know South African sponsors are putting money into the Sharks, the Stormers, Bulls and Lions, but are they getting a reasonable return on investment? Not really, because you have a long list of Springboks playing their rugby outside the Rainbow Nation.
I read an interview with Simon Halliday this week, the former head of the EPCR. Wearing his England cap, he said England players should be picked even if they’re playing abroad because he wants the national team to be competitive and win a World Cup.
My response to that is, if the 12-11 semi-final result had gone the other way – and that goes for the other two one-point games against France and New Zealand – would we be holding the South African model up as best in class? Something everyone wants to mimic and copy.
It’s doubtful.
People have to appreciate that what works in England is different to what works in South Africa. Lots of English commentators are asking for more flexibility over player selection, especially as you can be in Paris in only two hours on the train, which is closer than Pretoria (Bulls) to Cape Town (Stormers) on the plane. Feasibly English boys in Paris, Toulouse, Toulon or Bordeaux could make it back in a day. Of course, would those same commentators be advocating for picking overseas players if they went to play in New Zealand, Australia and Japan? The answer would be no. It wouldn’t even be considered.
In France, it’s basically an open secret that Fijian, Samoan, Georgian and Tongan players are under pressure from their club owners to pass on mid-year or end-of-year tours because they’re needed by their clubs. If they up sticks, they can risk losing their contracts that provide a generous lifeline to family back home.
I remember after the 2007 World Cup there was a meeting by the powers-that-be about how you fitted Argentina into the global Test calendar because they’d finished third in the tournament. Space was found for them in the Rugby Championship but what I remember vividly is a spokesperson for the Top 14 saying, ‘Look, out of the 31-man Argentina squad, we have 30 playing in our league, out of the 31-man Georgia squad, we have 29 players playing in the Top 14 and ProD2’. And so he went on. His argument was that the Ligue Nationale de Rugby does more for the development of those players than any governing body does. The gist was, if you’re going to coral them into playing Test rugby, then theoretically we’re not going to contract them because we’re not getting our return on our investment. Whether we like it or not, rugby has gone professional and there is no turning back.
If you knit those arguments together, it goes back to what I’m saying about the best players playing in the best competition. I’ve said this ad nauseam, but will say it again. South African franchises would be powerhouses if we had all our overseas based players back in situ. We would have the same unbeatable aura the Toulouses, Leinsters or Saracens of this world have had over the last decade or so. Right now, the talent Leinster are assembling is frightening. Signing Jordie Barrett on top of RG Snyman, hell, I’ve even seen rumours they’re in for Taniela Tupou – the move to the Aviva Stadium could see them sitting regally at the top of Europe for some time.
This is my next debate. After the press release about the World Club Championship, the next looming battle between Test and club rugby beckons. My message would be, please be careful not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. In South Africa, it’s the franchises and the personnel who cultivate the stars and the local businesses who support them. It’s the same in England, if all your best players go to France why would Gallagher continue to sponsor the league, why would TNT continue to pay for TV rights? No, they wouldn’t. They want the best players playing in front of their audiences and to put bums on seats so there are full stadiums. If the day comes when local sponsors decide to overlook the team down the street, and invest in franchises thousands of miles away is the day I really worry about the game I love.
Loyalty plays a part here. The happiest day of my life were when I was appointed national coach of my country. As a non-Springbok, English-speaking guy, it was the pinnacle of my career. I would have given anything for that privilege and looking back, I’ve never had that feeling again, so I know how much it meant to me. When you listen to those emotive sporting quotes that say, ‘I would give anything to play for my country’, or ‘sacrifice needs to hurt’, then theoretically it means committing yourself to your own country. You can’t make millions overseas and then drop in for the weekend to play for your country. You need to give more. That’s my viewpoint.
Otherwise, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen further down the line. Rugby will go the same way as cricket. Test cricket is in its death-knell and IPL (Indian Premier League) will be deemed to be the future. Marketers can give me all the gimmicks they want about fans want to follow 50 or even 20 overs, and that five days Test cricket is passé, but it’s nonsense. Cricket created that monster and rugby will go the same way if we’re not careful. People say, that will never happen to the leading nations, but why can’t it? If a club on the other side of the world pays you the big bucks, then one day Test rugby is going to be diminished irrevocably – it’s already happening.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Comments on RugbyPass
They lost the game period move on
87 Go to commentsSpringboks won! Stop winging. You can change the game however much you and your rugby colonizing IRB want to and the Springboks will win you at that too. Your mind is colonized my friend get a life
87 Go to commentsBen, nobody gets fooled anymore by selective and biased data to support an hypothesis. Games are decided on such small margins these days that you win some and lose some, and dominance is a thing of the rugby past. Look at the RWC circle of fortune…. Ireland beats SA who beat France who beat NZ who beat Ireland. And so it goes on. Match officials help to eliminate real indiscretions. If they had been with us years before, no doubt results would have been different. Remember Andy Haden’s dive from a lineout in 1978 for which a match-wining penalty was awarded? Wales should have beaten the ABs that day. They took the loss like the gentlemen they were.
87 Go to commentsWith all the analysis and how good the all blacks were.The fundamental mistake with the ABs is that this is a test match and not an exhibition.There is no better team(country) in world rugby than the Boks that knows how to win a test match(we are post masters at this).We know our rules, we have the discipline, we tackle like beasts, we take our points and we never give up.I now have educated the ABs supporters(at least say thank you).Please stop “bitching” , accept what the outcome is and move along swiftly.
87 Go to commentsAnd they came from behind to win two big games before the final. No one can say what would have happened. Had the boks gone behind the game plan changes and the result may changes. Ifs and ands are irrelevant. The boks won. Neutral critics enjoyed the games they played. Its not a popularity contest. Get over it and move on.
87 Go to commentsI'm happy for the people of SA to get a second WC. And I mean that. I was very disappointed with this man's “stand on the hand” incident with Josh Van Der Flyer (Ireland). Ireland's downfall in the last WC was they did not rotate their first 15 as the head coach probably should have. That said, I'm happy for SA and genuinely hope it lifts the mood in their country. Ireland did beat them in the first match of the tournament. And before the trolls start trolling ….. please don't bother. Etzbeth said recently that the Irish players said after the match “see you in the final”…..this was actually wishing the SA team the best of luck in the rest, the Irish team were not dismissing the AB’s. This is what Etzbeth was implying. But he was wrong. I no longer live in Ireland. But I hope to see them lift that cup before I pass. Anyway, congratulations SA. 👍
12 Go to commentsMore bloody click bait. Dan Carter has said absolutely nothing. As he should do. Poor journalism again from a site that should know better
9 Go to commentsOh god please help these loosers get over it!!!! You lost. Doesn't matter how many times you dummies are gonna analyse the game, you still lost and we are still Rygby World Champions….get over it, you lost.
87 Go to commentsThe next Willie le Roux. SA are made not to use him.
2 Go to commentsDan has always been as controversial as tea with milk so we were never going to get any definitive answer. So DMac for the win.
9 Go to commentsGoodness. When are the All Blacks and New Zealand commentators going to stop complaining about how they could have won and just try to win next time 😂. In South Africa if you lose you get up and try again. Get over it.
87 Go to commentsHonestly, it doesn’t matter a whole lot. RSA has a ton of experienced talent in its leadership group. I am more interested in who is the new 8 man/8 men and the younger props. The captain may change but the system does not
1 Go to comments“See you in the final” can mean whatever you want it to mean. To me it means that 12 Irish rugby players are a bunch of poeses. See y’all in Pretoria.
141 Go to commentsBen, you are one of the most arrogant and self opionated rugby critics I have ever come across (next to Keohane). I hoped that after SA beating the best ranked teams in the world on their way to the WC (something not done before) that you might have the grace to admit that this is a special team that deserved the accolades coming their way. You have no humility and as has been been already pointed out, merely a troll to attract audience numbers. Count me out in the future.
87 Go to comments‘War of independence’. Such a grand name for a few skirmishes. Where were all the great battles of this ‘war’ ? Smith got goosebumps as he was being emotionally manipulated, another mushroom.
1 Go to commentsFor all those disputing the veracity of Etzebeth’s very public recollections of the Irish players’ comments, I have one question: should we be holding our collective breath in anticipation of a barrage of strenuous denials from the Irish squad? Then again, perhaps not…
141 Go to comments> If the game of rugby is to grow globally, then the rugby Sth Africa play needs to be exterminated. Their performances at World Cup ‘19 & ‘23 were the antithesis to what the game should be. If the World Cup final is the grand spectacle of the game, please no more having to endure the drudgery and insipid ‘style ‘ of play harking back to pre WWII days, where the soulless rugby of the Bok reflected the mindset of a nation. > Gotta agree with Ben Smith, “ the Springboks took the trophy by default, with what might be the most unimpressive escape of all time “.
87 Go to commentsI think Rassie should bring in some new guys and give them a go in these irrelevant games. It’s a chance to blood some guys that might otherwise not get a chance and see if they’re up to it. As for the who’s number 1 dispute? Don’t care. As long as the trophies are brought home, that argument isn’t important. Champions don’t fuss about the could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. They just do, and that for me makes SA and NZ the top dogs. Followed by Ireland and occasionally England.
225 Go to commentsThis is like the “catches win matches" saying in cricket. If ABs were pragmatic and kicked for goal instead of hunting tries, I reckon they win that game with ease. Instead, nearly 6 months later; we have World Rugby's official mouthpiece celebrating their Almost Won the Rugby World Cup trophy. Fine Victory Gentleman! Well-earned!!
87 Go to comments“…the All Blacks nearly won…” is the only phrase you need to concern yourself with relative to this “journalistic” piece. Enjoy your Almost Won the World Cup victory…
87 Go to comments