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Jake White's Departure From Montpellier Is As Eyebrow-Raising As His Arrival

By James Harrington
Jake White while at Montpellier /Getty Images

Getting rid of the World Cup-winning coach who led them to the European Challenge Cup in his first full season in charge could be the best thing that’s ever happened to Montpellier, writes James Harrington.

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The big news out of the Top 14 last week was not that Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal was considering selling the club after a decade in charge.

Boudjellal wears his heart on his sleeve, and, for all that he’s portrayed as the moustache-twirling Victorian baddie of the Top 14, his is a big heart that beats in rouge-et-noir for his beloved club.

He may well sell-up – talks with a fellow local business consortium are said to be at an advanced stage – but, make no mistake, this is not the great parting of the ways some would like to believe it will be.

No, the big news came from further west along the Mediterranean coast, where it was revealed that World Cup-winning coach Jake White’s tenure at Montpellier is coming to an end as eyebrow-raising as its beginning.

White will depart at the end of the season, no matter what happens, to be replaced by former Clermont coach Vern Cotter.

He arrived in January 2015, as a consultant, after Fabien Galthié was ‘suspended’ following a string of eight defeats in nine games. Rumour has it that the former France scrum-half had decided to take a South American holiday rather than work to turn around the club’s fortunes.

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White formally took over as head coach at the end of the 2014/15 season, with Galthié sent out on gardening leave. (He’s still there, such is the painfully slow nature of French employment bureaucracy. He pops up now and then as a TV pundit, but is unable to take a coaching job at another club).

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It didn’t take long for White to make his presence felt. A bunch of French players were sent packing and replaced by a bunch of South Africans – JIFF rules be damned.

The playing-style changed, too. Under Galthié, Montpellier were passionate and volatile and brilliant and frustrating and … French. They played sexy rugby. When they were good (and they could be), they were very, very good. When they were bad (and they could be) they were diabolical. But they had style – and the Montpellierans, soccer fans to their very core, loved them for it.

Jake White doesn’t do sexy rugby. He does winning rugby. He replaced French umami with the South African beef he knows how to work with. It’s quality stuff, there’s no doubt, but has left a bad taste in French rugby fans’ mouths.

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In the season-and-a-few-weeks he has been in charge, Montpellier have won the European Challenge Cup, and reached the end-of-season Top 14 play-offs to qualify for the Champions Cup this season.

But White’s winning rugby is a turn-off – proof that success does not always draw crowds. At the start of the 2014/15 season, Galthié’s last few weeks in charge, the average attendance at what was then called Stade Yves du Manoir but is now known as the Altrad Stadium, was well over 13,000. This season, the club is lucky to draw 10,000 fans to home games.

Club President Mohed Altrad could probably live with the local downturn in support for a while. Unlike Boudjellal, he has publicly admitted that he’s not in club ownership for the love of rugby.

He could probably cope with the fact that his head coach could not summon up the effort to learn more than a token amount of the language.

He may even have been able to handle the near-criminal handling of old faithful François Trinh-Duc’s departure. After more than a decade of service, the fly-half was dropped for the club’s final home game of last season and denied the chance to say one final goodbye to the fans.

You could argue, as White did, that there is no place for sentiment in modern rugby. But it was a cruel and bitter end to the player’s 13-year Montpellier career – and French rugby fans are a sentimental bunch. Just 10 minutes would have been enough, Jake. Would it have been so hard?

What Altrad could not live with was the revelation that White had none-too-quietly sounded out the English RFU about taking over the England hotseat. That was a personal betrayal.

The story is that White wanted to extend his stay, but Altrad decided enough was enough. He is rumoured to have offered former Toulon coach and FFR presidential hopeful Bernard Laporte an eye-watering amount of money to take over, but has in the end offered Cotter the job.

Cotter knows French rugby. He will bring the excitement back to Montpellier. It will have a steelier heart than it did under Galthié, of that there is no doubt, but it will be – when the rugby gods look down kindly on Montpellier – breathtaking stuff. It’s probably the best rugby decision Altrad has ever made.

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J
Jon 8 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 11 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

44 Go to comments
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FEATURE Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby? Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?
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