One day when you visit SA we have a beer….my blonde was at J C E with Jake….i met and chatted to Luke in 2007 ….told him to stop the kak….also met Jake with the blonde….it was a goddamn soap opera.

No prizes for who you think i backed!!

On the JW issue, the RWC might have been a helluva lucky draw, but we succeeded where other teams failed in beating Argentina and England who put pay to the Frogs four times.
imo that Bok side would have beaten all and sundry, as the present side is showing it can do.

On who is best between PdV and JW, i think they are both excellent, and probably we were very lucky to get these two exactly when we did. I am not sure PdV would have been as consistent as JW was in terms of sticking to the core, even when losing, and I am not sure JW would have taken the team on as PDV has done with such a magnicent set of results including two away wins in NZ, a 5-1 3N demolition and a Lions series.

Your delusion stretches to the fact that White didn’t select a fetching flank throughout his tenure and got whipped by the biggest hiding a bok coach could as a result of some of that very blindness. Now you trying to tell me he built a WC winning team after losing poorly through 06 and 07 in the 3N.

You also deluding yourselves to convincing your minds that by beating 7th ranked England and 6th ranked Argentina to win a world cup competition made in heaven was tantamount to eradicating all that poor strategy and hopeless losing through the two years before as somewhat redeeming this coaches credibility in your eyes.

Pdv is streaks ahead of White in terms of winning capacity unless you still unable to realize this.

Also its a totally false premise to believe the core of Whites team was of his own design or making. He made as many if not far more stupid decisions and selections than Pdv, one example being he was unable to recognize the need for a to the ball open side flank as highlighted already on this thread picking big slow ball carriers instead. Selecting poor fly halves like Vd Westhuizen poor wings like Pretorius and some others. He did not create the team that won the world cup he coordinated it together with Eddy Jones who he needed desperately as another internationally experienced sounding board because he was emphatically floundering right out of his depth, otherwise he would not have solicited his input. The only players introduced to that team during his tenure were Fdp, Steyn, Habana, Pienaar, Bismark and Jpp. All the rest incl J. Smit, V. Matfield, B. Botha, Steenkamp, Cj, Os, van Niekerk, Smith, Burger, van Heerden, Jdv, Percy etc were Springbok’s before he took charge. His two better years 2004 and 2005 were in fact when he had taken the previous team almost intact with Barry and Joubert still in centre field. After that his strategic and tactical lack actually got severely exposed hence the more than poor showings through 06 and 07.

No if anyone is short sighted and fooled by deluded oblivion round here its certainly not me but all you that still reckon White is or was anywhere near a rugby coach as Pdv is.

The guy has no idea what development is. He thinks a coach creates a team in a week – like his comments about Eddie Jones winning teh world cup for us.

Eddie might have had valuable input but he didn’t change the way the Boks played. Jake groomed them to play WC winning rugbya nd thats what they did.

Eddies contribution I’m sure was valuable but a coach doesn’t build or make a WC winning team in the space of a month or so.

Really to even utter that is stupidity.

It took year to build the team to have the composure, defense, experience to win a WC. Jake knew that and thats what he set out from the start to achieve and he achieved it.

We are all proud of our current team. Give JAke his dues in this success. It really is astounding that people can;t do that. It’s pure stubborness and lack of ability to know what it takes to develop a winning team.

PDV deserves his dues as well. As a black coach in a sport loved like a religion my the majority of white people he must feel the heat. He has stood tall and delivered and good on him. He has made teh right decision in selection and come round to the right decisions in tactics. Respect.

Jake built a team from nothing to one of teh most caps teams in history.

PDV took a mature team and helped them developed.

The real test will be what happens when these core players identified by Jake have to reture and replacements need to be found.

Who will have the vision to pick the right players and let them develop over time.

It takes time to develop a team into the unit the Springboks are today.

England under Woodwood back up that statement.

A young NZ and Aussie team not playing as well is also testament to what Jakes core belief was> Pick teh right players and let them build caps.

Thats what happened and look now.

Skop you have always been a person that can’t see further than one game ahead or remember anything previosu to the last game played.

Get perspective on what has been achieved over 6 years. Yes 6 years since the core of this team was formed. over 800 caps between them.

It took Jake and PDV to achieve that not either one. And I will always back Jake as teh better coach of the 2 as he built teh team, he made the hard decisions, PDV make the right decision but they were much easier to make.

But I am happy to say PDV is our Coach. He is doing a great job. The players seem really comfortable and happy under him which is a great testament.

I believe it did beoame slightly personal, in light of JW’s abbrasive untactful approach, but i just am not sure the initial non-selection was a personal one.

You probably feel White ruined Watson’s career, but the coach can only select those he feels will best implement his vision, i think you and many others felt Watson was an automatic shoe-in, but not everybody felt this way, even Stephen Jones is not a big Watson fan (tho he also seems to be tjoms with White). I just do not think White rated him, but perhaps there was more, i dunno.

Where I think White’s personal ideology was very questionable was the terrible opportunism shown immediately after RWC2007 in which he touted his services for the touring BIL. That was bladdy poor smaak imo.

Since Schalk was sidelined out of WP for injury reasons, Province have suddenly come right and under the captaincy of Watson. I can tell you that Schalk Burger as much as he is so highly rated by many across the country and the world isn’t fit to tie the boot laces of Watson if it comes down to intelligent rugby captaincy no matter what White thinks or says.

Agendas flow fast and furiously in this ideologically driven sport here none more so where coaches favorites are challenged by so called politically active upstarts. But if I have to chose between Watson and Burger to captain any side or for that matter to play open side or 8th man I reckon under current circumstances I stick with Watson. Not saying Burger has become superfluous or redundant, his ferocious defensive capabilities are legion, the pity is that between those two there seems to be such bitter rivalry and such absolute animosity and zero love lost that they simply cannot get the best out of their compatriot association.

Such is the great pity where ideological or personal vendetta’s get blown so way out proportion by coaches who rather fan the fires of incompatibility than utilize the variety of talents for the overall good cause. Such is the nature of such divisiveness. If the coach was half the man manager or potential DOR he pretends to be, he would never have incited this stand off from the beginning and would have been far more mature and encompassing about it all.

Cape Town – Former Springbok coach Jake White says he is ready to help save the team from their present crisis. He also wants to play a notable role in the future of SA rugby.

“I want to be director of rugby in South Africa,” White said on Tuesday.

But the man who masterminded the SA World Cup triumph in France last year does not want his former job back and he wants to stay out of the limelight.

SA Rugby Union president Oregan Hoskins has already made it clear that Peter de Villiers’s position as national coach is in no danger.

However, the Springboks have lost four of their five Tri-Nations Test matches this season and the players seem to be struggling to adapt to De Villiers’s rugby philosophy.

“I don’t want to get rich from SA rugby,” White said. “I don’t want to be in the limelight and I’m not looking for the pressures that go with it. I’ve had my turn.

“All I’d like to do is help. That’s what I have always wanted to do.”

White was unable to attend the Test in Durban last week when Australia beat South Africa 27-15.

However, he has formed an opinion on the basis of observations he made during other matches.

“There are too many forwards standing around in the backline,” he said. “They try to do half of what we did, and half of their own thing. Half of everything leaves you with nothing,” White said.

“Schalk Burger was, until recently, the best player in the world. Now he is replaced during a match by Luke Watson. I don’t understand that.”

White said it would be easy for him to join in as a consultant. He would be comfortable with the players because the core of the team that had won the World Cup was still there.

Jake had a personal vendetta against Watson and possibly not many know exactly what for, but I reckon it went around more than just one or two issues. I think possibly Watson had stood up to his authority already at junior level when Jake suggested if he wanted to play in his team he should play hooker and Watson refused and said he wanted to continue his career at flank or loose forward. Also there may have been leadership conflict at Sharks with J. Smit and White rallied round Smit which is understandable. Some rumours doing the rounds about a thing with John’s wife which sounded rough and might just be rumour. But I reckon perhaps the initial issue is what David touched on that he was Cheeky’s son and that his influence under ANC political ideology was simply abhorred by the bulk of the rugby status quo and this is possibly along with all the other divisive speculation which sparked the vendetta off.

Why would one single individual represent such a diverse conflict in a rugby nation if it was not fraught with all manner of personal and ideological issues, impossible. He was voted by the rugby players as players player of the year in 06 I think it was yet White refused point blank to pick him and picked Tybilika and Floors instead. Blindness is the word absolute prejudiced blindness nothing else suffices as a true representation of the issue. And ultimately what we reap out of it is a player who is either martyrd or despised 29 the rugby fraternity. Totally unnecessary stand off for petty personal or ideological reasons.