Clyde’s comeback reflects on Jake’s genius
11 Feb 2013
Jake White is a better coach now than when he won the World Cup in 2007. He is also the inspiration in Clyde Rathbone’s comeback.
White has always been a bloody good rugby coach, but as a young coach schooled in the South African system it meant White’s rugby education was as much about player pedigree as it was about coach’s paranoia.
South Africa is a wicked rugby system in that it is never as simple as a good coach coaches a good team. There are so many political agendas and I am not referring to race. School affiliation plays its part, north versus south has always been bigger than white versus black and English versus Afrikaans has always been more of a soul destroyer where it should be a a unifier of something stronger when two cultures combine for the purpose of one result.
White, born and raised Afrikaans, started his schooling as Jakobus Westerduim and finished it adopted to an English step father as the teenager Jake White. If anyone would be vulnerable to paranoia or bouts of insecurity then he, through no doing of his own, was a prime candidate.
His coaching career has been one of success but equally one of alienation as he has sought to convince the world of his identity and quality as being the best. It obviously goes deeper than rugby but White, in South Africa, was the victim of politics as much as he was taught to use the politics within rugby to further his own case.
White always wanted to be just a rugby coach and he wanted to be judged just as a rugby coach, but he also wanted comfort of how good he was as this coach. He felt victimised. He never felt he got his dues. He was never considered a candidate for the national coaching job but never doubted he was the best for the job.
When he won the game’s greatest prize he could not focus on the prize but was repulsed that those who had spurned him were self acclaimed saviours for appointing him. Those who wanted him to fail were preaching of how they made him succeed.
He had to leave South Africa to find the reason he loved the game. He had to coach rugby again and find joy from creating and not being accused of being the beneficiary of an already made creation.
When White got the Bok job in 2004 he initially flourished, then fell as all the paranoia and politics set in, and then he soared as he applied his mind to coaching a team, embracing expertise in the form of Eddie Jones and allowing the collective to be stronger than the insecurity of one individual.
White was brilliant in the Boks’ 2007 World Cup campaign, in his planning, in his squad selection and in his match 22 selections. If you like or dislike him it is difficult to counter his contribution. He is the first to put Eddie Jones on a pedestal but Eddie’s role, by his own admission, was secondary to what White had already put in place.
White, though, was never content in South Africa, even as a World Cup winner because there was too much pain associated with prejudice as far as he was concerned. He was always in confrontation and because of his nature he sought the confrontation as a means of fronting his opinion on South African rugby.
Some would describe him a rugby political animal, but the real man just wants to be the best rugby coach. Canberra, and the Brumbies, has allowed White to be the coach and rugby to be the game. In South Africa White was as much political pawn as he may have thought he was a political pioneer.
I am thrilled for him at what he has achieved with the Brumbies. He has special qualities as a coach and one of them is his loyalty to players. Those who he invests in respond and he has a whisperer’s touch when it comes to taking the wounded in something special and finding the wonder in that same individual.
We saw it with Percy Montgomery and Os du Randt with the Springboks and we are now seeing it with Clyde Rathbone. White has always believed Rathbone to be special, as a player and a person. He made him the SA under 21 captain in the year he coached the baby Boks to a world championship.
Rathbone chose an international career in Australia and made telling scoring contributions against White’s senior Boks, but Rathbone succumbed to a combination of injury and depression and his career ended with a crash. He retired three seasons ago but a year in White’s company also proved motivation enough that a return was possible.
White has made Rathbone believe again and Canberra and the Brumbies have made White belief that it is about the player, the game and that the result is not always the one on the scoreboard. Giving Rathbone hope and resurrecting life into the Brumbies will define White’s perceived status as much as winning a World Cup with the Springboks. What he has done in Canberra, as a man who can inspire, define him even more than what he did as a coach in Paris in 2007.
By Mark Keohane
86 Comments
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11 Feb 2013, 20:13 pm
Bit off the topic, Juan Smith retires due to yet another achilles injury sustained in the game against the bulls. A huge loss imo.
11 Feb 2013, 20:17 pm
http://mobi.supersport.com/rugby/sa-rugby/news/130211/Juan_Smith_retires sorry for the mobi site, was browsing on my phone
11 Feb 2013, 20:22 pm
Unfortunate, fabulous player.
11 Feb 2013, 23:29 pm
Players like to be led. Jake White’s boks won the WC because he was uncompromising and in charge. PdV was weak and allowed his senior players to run the show. Many more glory days to come for White, Pdv not so much.
11 Feb 2013, 23:34 pm
End of the day White was a good rugby coach, and he has proved it at every single level, what he was kak at, and should never have got involved in was the political shennanigans – which is exactly what the article is about.
11 Feb 2013, 23:38 pm
We;ve had alot worse coaches than PdV, he was actually fine and coulda won the gold trophy too had it not been for his player loyalty. He was just as loyal as White maybe even more so, but dropping Bismark was a terrible howler of a decision.
12 Feb 2013, 01:57 am
Wayne Barnes won that WC for SA, not Jake White
he was the recipient of the easiest run to the title ever
12 Feb 2013, 03:21 am
The only “shenanigans” that White was involved in was consistently taking all the backroom bull**** to the media. And that was fior a reason. In the cold hard light of day, politics shrivels up like teh evil it is and truth reigns.
Is a GREAT coach, and should be acknowledged as such. One shudders to think what he could have done with his team of 2007 if he was allowed to keep coaching for another four years.
12 Feb 2013, 05:27 am
Well Jake did say judge him at the RWC….. and by the loving posts its seems a lot of you guys have just done that and forgotten about the average win ratio he had against international teams before. And the fact that he needed help in the ways of Eddie Jones.
@SjamBok-58:
That team of 2007 was taken apart by the ABs and even in 2008.
He is a good coach but to be great with a average win ratio is going too far i think.
But thats my opinion…..not always correct
12 Feb 2013, 05:51 am
@Hurricane-59:
Hurri, you need to see his results in context though…he won a WC in spite of the obstacles thrown in his way. For instance being called back home from an autumn tour to ‘discuss’ his performance, player selections forced on him, having to re-apply for his own job whilst in the throws of winning a WC and plenty of other stuff.
As for Ed the Lip, he came and polished some rough edges out of a structure build over 4 years. We know his track record as coach so to suddenly say he was the difference is laugable. What was remarkable was that JW picked the right person at the right time to help him across the line. It shows a guy who knew what was needed and did the right thing to fix it.
12 Feb 2013, 06:54 am
Without Jones White wouldn’t have made the WC semis. White was falling apart prior to WC 2007 and it was Jones who pulled his team together.
Despite the fact that it was the easiest run to a WC trophy ever to negotiate playing Argentina and England 6th and 7th ranked IRB teams without Jones White would have fallen by the wayside in spite of his luck.
Kak coach and a bit of a prick to boot and it shows almost all his praise singers are the same arse licking arsetralian wooly woolongonian wannabe’s that he and his darling runaway chylde is.
In terms of simple human traits and qualities Pdv leaves him in the shade.
White got lucky S.A. rugby had come through a renaissance led by Kiss Louden and Campese the top two S.A. teams Bulls and Sharks contesting SR trophy that year
12 Feb 2013, 06:58 am
In spite of this he still needed another foreign coach in Jones to pull his team together and show him the way home. That’s how much of a rugby genius Jacobus Westerduim is.
12 Feb 2013, 07:00 am
@DumpsterDiver-54: Good post, sir.
12 Feb 2013, 07:04 am
Hahaha skop jou dom poepol, your dislike for Jake makes any comment from you irrelevant. IRB coach of the year, twice, TN and WC and no matter how insulting you try to be you can never take that away from him.
12 Feb 2013, 07:07 am
Kiss Louden and Campese…so they were head coaches of which teams exactly?
You can’t pick and choose who had a positive impact and who not, the team stands and falls by the head coach and in this example it was JW.
12 Feb 2013, 07:09 am
Pity White wasn’t allowed to continue post 2007 cause then the mythology of all this bullshit genius would been exposed for exactly what it is.
When’s this white sport for whiteys only protagonist f’ng off to go shack up with the rest of the goolongonwannabes like his other fake heroes did?
12 Feb 2013, 07:12 am
@skopdiekan-62:
Schmuck.
12 Feb 2013, 07:17 am
White is a reasonable student of the game who learned more from all the fckups he made and from his lessons taught him by his mentor Eddy Jones than all these genius accolades being heaped upon his head by all these white is right arsetralian wannabe disciples. One thing keohane has got right in this blown up ******** of an article is that he’s a better coach now than he was when Eddy helped him fluke a no contest WC
12 Feb 2013, 07:20 am
You talking to yourself gungho Guntergwathole
******* must be a naughty starry starry word.
12 Feb 2013, 07:27 am
So 2008 saw the genius that is PDivvie?!
Anyway who the hell is Eddy?
12 Feb 2013, 07:55 am
2006 and 2007 3N is the true legacy to Whites genius
3 wins from 10 = 30% wins
1 win by one lucky gimme point at home
1 win by 2 lucky gimme long range drop goals at home
And 1 loss by 49 points 7 tries to zero
Else it could easy have read 1 win from 10
That’s the true genius of White prior to Eddy Jones’s input
2007 WC was down to Jones influence and a lucky packet draw
Like I said pity he couldn’t carry on post 2007 so that all this true genius get properly exposed.
12 Feb 2013, 08:06 am
World Cup Champions 2007, says it all.
Who the hell is Eddy Jones?
12 Feb 2013, 08:13 am
@Slartibartfast-64: Good one.
12 Feb 2013, 08:15 am
@skopdiekan-66: You speaking to me, twat?
I have told you before…show me where I have said anything about whites-only sport…otherwise STFU.
Prick.
12 Feb 2013, 08:16 am
Jones is the guy who took out Mitchells All Blacks in semis and took Woodward to extra time in WC 2003 final when England were rated no.1
Not the IRB rated no.7 that England where when White took them by 5 penalties to 2 in 2007
That’s the Eddy Jones who White needed to steer his wonky ship through uncharted waters he was too inept and too chicken to steer it through alone
12 Feb 2013, 08:23 am
It’s good you recognize when you being told off white is mighty right Wollongongian wannabe brumbiearselick boy. You in the wrong continent all your brumbiearselick brethren are other side of the Indian ocean when you joining them there?
12 Feb 2013, 08:24 am
@skopdiekan-76: Scott…..
Scott fcukall to do with you.
12 Feb 2013, 08:37 am
No skop, Eddy Jones is a figment of your imagination.
Eddie Jones on the other hand is the bloke that shows zero WC as head coach compared to JW who shows 1 for 1 in World Cups as head coach.
12 Feb 2013, 08:38 am
Come to think of it, Kitch and Jake are the only two coaches to ever win a WC at their first attemp…
12 Feb 2013, 08:41 am
…forgot to add, amazing coaches both of them!
12 Feb 2013, 08:51 am
@Slartibartfast-80: Absolutely!!!
Phambili Jakobus Westerduim aka Jake White!
12 Feb 2013, 09:00 am
@BrumbiesBoy-81:
Pity he changes his name, would have been lekker to have a winning coach called Westerduim.
12 Feb 2013, 09:22 am
@Slartibartfast-82: Personally I would’ve preferred Jakobus Skopdied.es
12 Feb 2013, 09:54 am
Skop do you live on table mountain in a wine and **** stained box , tormenting the good folk of cape town for money which you spend on surgical spirits and airtime at the local internet cafe?
12 Feb 2013, 10:04 am
the amount of spunk that protrudes your mouth leads one to think you enjoy gargling mayonnaise, maybe that’s how you pay for air time at the internet cafe
12 Feb 2013, 15:54 pm
Jisslaaikit! Why is Keo lekking Jake se gat so much?
Cue Jake on the next cover of SA Rugby
A few more articles on Jake
Then Ryan will write an article calling for Jake to be Bok coach again
Then Jake will announce that Keo/Highbury (watookal) is his new agent
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