Jake White on the Bok problems

1. Poor defence
“The first problem, in capital letters, is defence. We started a rush defence in 2004 and were leaders in world rugby. Other countries followed us. South Africa conceded four tries in just 25 minutes in a critical Test on Saturday.”

2. No new ideas on attack
“I believe South African rugby should stick to what works for them, but also be innovative. I don’t see any subtle changes to our attacking play. It’s good to have experience, but you also have to come up with fresh ideas.”

3. Too much player power
“There is a fine line between a player-driven system and player empowerment. The players are possibly in a comfort zone. I see players in TV ads and hear about business interests. As far as player empowerment is concerned, it’s good to give players an input into the game plan, but the coach still has to provide leadership and make difficult decisions.”

4. Reactive, not pro-active decision making
“Not a single difficult decision has been made in the last three years. It’s difficult to change because it forces you to make difficult decisions. The perception is there that South Africa did not adapt their way of playing this year, but the statistics show that they kicked a lot less than last year. We did adapt. New Zealand are kicking more, but are still scoring four tries per game. We have to stick to the principles that work for us because we don’t want to be New Zealand, Australia, Wales or Fiji.”

5. Giving other teams the psychological edge
“Players like Kurtley Beale and James O’Connor will start believing that they can win against anybody if they beat John Smit and Victor Matfield in South Africa.”

6. Comparing 2010 to 2006
“Australia are now in a similar position to where South Africa were back then. The Wallaby coach is one game away from turning the entire situation in his favour. He understands how to build a team and the average age is quite low. There are young guys like Will Genia, David Pocock and the Faingaa brothers that won the junior world championship together. Deans also has to get players like Dan Vickerman, James Horwill, Ben Alexander, Wycliff Palu, Scott Higginbotham, Stirling Mortlock and Digby Ioane back.”

The solutions

“We have to look at our defence,” White said. “A concern for me is how we have gone from the best defensive team in the world to a team that leaks four tries consistently in Test matches. People are saying it is the new laws, but it is not the new laws.The All Black have had seven clean sheets in the last year. The bottom line is, if the All Blacks can get it right – they can slow the ball down or stop tries – they must be doing something right. I’m not for one minute saying we must copy the All Blacks, what I’m saying is find a way for doing what these players were the best in and that is defending.

“The second thing is that one has to be innovative. There is no doubt that the players have got stale and the reason they’ve gotten stale is because they have been around for a long time. That means you have to bring in new ideas, but that doesn’t mean you to move too far away from what you were good at. What has happened is that we probably lost the focus on what we were good at as a nation and as a group.”

“It is not just a case of one person saying: ‘This is what I’ll do.’ If everyone knew, then we would have the answer straight away and we wouldn’t need to bring in anyone else.

“What has to be done is there has to be some sort of planning put into place between now and the World Cup. The planning, unfortunately, now has to be different to what it would have been if you were a four-year coach. When you have a team for four years it is very different to when you have the team for one year.

“You have to find a way to give every player going to the World Cup and opportunity to give it a full bash at the World Cup and that would change from individual to individual. It would impact how you pick teams from now. You have to pick the end-of-year tour in isolation. You can’t just say the end-of-year tour: ‘We have to win that’, because it might not help you win the World Cup. You need to find ways which are going to be the best for everybody. The only way you are going to do that is once you get feedback from the people in the system about what is happening, before you can work out a plan. It is not as simple as doing it from outside.”

“If we leave the same things the same, we will have the same results tomorrow. If you don’t change things today, you are going to be the same tomorrow – that is the reality.”