Jake White enlightens Bok supporters

Springbok coach Jake White delivered an insightful address to the lucky winners of the Vodacom Greatest Supporters Tour in Christchurch on Thursday evening.

“I’m very happy about the overall plan and where we are at the moment. When I heard the criticism that the ‘A’ team wasn’t here, then I knew I’d done my job.

“Had I brought this team here in 2004, nobody would’ve said a word to me. They would’ve said it’s an exciting and young team, and that’s what we started with in 2004.

“Now that exciting young team we played against Ireland with in 2004 – the Juan Smiths, Schalk Burgers, Victor Matfields, John Smits and Bakkies Bothas – have 40 Test caps behind them.

“When people said you’ve left all your main guys behind I realised we’d done the first part of our job well by showing succession and consistency. Basically, I’ve got a fully fit squad of 40 players.

“It doesn’t get any better than this. Now the second part is to make sure these guys are the back-up guys to the ones going to the World Cup.

“We’ve come here with very good rugby teams in the past and been hammered, so to bring a new batch of players and get a result like we did against Australia, albeit a negative result, there were a lot of positives to take from that game.

“For a lot of these players it’s the first time they’ve played away from home and whoever takes over as the national coach is going to get a nice batch of players to start building with.

“But there’s an opportunity here for players to put their hands up. Next week we pick our World Cup squad. Injuries happen between picking the squad and leaving for France, so the 30 you select are not necessarily the 30 that get on the plane and go to the World Cup.

“As much as these players feel they might not make the final 30, life works in strange ways. It could work that there’s an injury or two and then they’ll expect me to call their names out.

“If they haven’t put their hands up on a tour like this, it will be very difficult for me to expect them to play away from home in France. The message to the players is clear, put your name on that list.

“I’ve watched the players in training this week, but also how they respond off the field. I want to see how they react to playing in minus four degrees Celsius, to playing the number one team in the world, to being left out of the team.

“When you want to win the World Cup, you look for 30 players who understand these things. And I can tell you that when I’m looking for a replacement I’m not going to phone a player who shows me he doesn’t like playing in the cold.

“It doesn’t get any tougher than this. It’s about minus five degrees outside now, it’s going to be raining on Saturday night, the Jade Stadium is a very successful rugby ground for the All Blacks and they have an impressive record at home.

“This is the best team in the world. They will run the ball from all sides, and it’s important for me to see how we defend out wide. But physically I have no doubt we can match them.

“The challenge in South African rugby is how to retain our senior players. We will always have too much talent in South Africa. But to lose a player like John Smit to France now is very sad. Hookers only really start coming into their own at his age. So we’ve invested all these years in making him a great player, and now he’ll go and teach the French hookers with all that knowledge. That’s very sad,” concluded the Springbok coach.