While Jake White busies himself growing back some hair, he has earned the right to carve this motto above his dressing room mirror: ‘I told you soâ€. The Springbok coach has earned instant celebrity status by guiding his team to the Tri-Nations trophy merely by keeping his own counsel and backing his own judgement.
When South Africa played Ireland in June, De wet Barry was busy battling back from injury. White ignored the claims of a dozen players and called up Wayne Julies, a player so lightly regarded by the Currie Cup unions that he was allowed to languish in the Slough of Despond, a man without a contract, but not, apparently, without hope.
It’s hard to recall now that Ireland were regarded as favourites for those two Tests. The selection of Julies seemed an aberration, one that the coach made in haste and would regret at leisure. But Julies did the one thing that all coaches hope for; by the quality of his play he made it damn hard to drop him.
But White knew that he wanted Barry and Marius Joubert in midfield and when the moment came, he did not pussyfoot around. Julies was dropped with thanks, and remained a valued member of the squad. His reward is a contract with the Eagles and almost certainly a trip to Britain and Argentina at the end of the year.
Julies’s story bears comparison with that of Jacques Cronje. The Bulls’ eighth man was not part of White’s original squad. The coach made it clear from day one that he wanted Joe van Niekerk because he added an attacking dimension unique in South Africa.
Cronje played his heart out in New Zealand and Australia and his reward was to be benched as soon as Big Joe was ready. Very few critics agreed with White’s selection for the Ellis Park Test against the All Blacks. Van Niekerk could not conceivably have been match fit, but for an hour, he made life a misery for Andrew Mehrtens.
When Cronje was thrown on for the last 20 minutes he played as though he’d never been away, set up the hat-trick try for Joubert and did all the things that Van Niekerk had done for the first 60 minutes. And yet there was never any doubt who would play number eight against Australia last week and Cronje now knows that if he wants to make the starting line-up it will be in the number seven jersey, because the number eight is locked up.
Then there were White’s bolters: Percy Montgomery and Jaco van der Westhuyzen, plucked from Newport and Leicester respectively, and Os du Randt, plucked from his cattle farm in the Free State. Each man has played every Test of White’s reign and not one would have been seriously considered in any pre-season poll.
Du Randt was told to get himself fit and prove that he could play 80 minutes with forwards a decade younger. It seemed utter madness for the coach to show such faith in a broken down old man, yet Du Randt came through with his mighty reputation enhanced and the ringing approbation of the crowd every time he touched the ball: ‘AAAwwwwssssâ€, they cried.
Yet the rehabilitation of Du Randt was nothing compared to the epiphany of Montgomery.
Only towards the end of eight trying Tests did Monty’s halo slip. Under pressure, his place-kicking technique faltered and, as a result, South Africa’s opponents were in the game longer than they might otherwise have been.
Van der Westhuyzen’s legacy will be that with him in the side South Africans finally understood the modern truth; that the flyhalf is just another player, not the be-all and end-all of the game.
The point of the forgoing is that Du Randt, Montgomery and Van der Westhuyzen were human. They had good games and bad games, but they were allowed to grow into their roles. At no stage did White ever consider dropping them. When games are tight, and remember that three of South Africa’s four Tri-Nations games were decided by four points or fewer, players perform because they know they are appreciated: just ask Victor Matfield.
Any fool can pick a Schalk Burger or a Jean de Villiers, because these are manifestly great players. But coaches with skills that extend beyond the ability to organise a koppe-stamp session understand that success comes from finding the extra desire in ordinary players.
That is what White has achieved this year and even if things were to go pear-shaped henceforward, he should be able to relax for the next few weeks and remind his critics of that pithy motto: ‘I told you so.â€