Jake White has a plan. Some of the previous incumbents of the Springbok coaching position have often claimed to have a plan, but White actually has one. If this were not the case the team to play New Zealand at Ellis Park on Saturday, announced on Tuesday, would deserve to attract a great deal more derision than it has.

It’s very nice to go travelling, but it’s so much nicer to come home. While Springbok coach Jake White was whistling that refrain over breakfast in his Cape Town home this week, something would have been nagging at the corner of his mind. Was the toast burnt? Did the cornflakes lack crunch? Was the milk sour?
No. The source of the trouble was already a week old and it happened in Perth.

In the wake of South Africa’s 23-21 loss to New Zealand in Christchurch last week a few questions have to be asked. What, for instance, is the point of phase play? The All Blacks scored the winning try in the 80th minute by holding on to the ball through 15 phases. By contrast, the Springboks never once held the ball beyond three phases, yet they scored three tries to one.

If South Africa beat New Zealand in Christchurch on Saturday it will be a miracle, but not because the All Blacks are a great side, for they are not, and not because the Springboks are poor, for they are far from that. No, victory is bizarrely unlikely because the Springboks will take the field dragging tons of emotional baggage behind them.

If a week is a long time in politics, then three weeks is an eternity, but that is all the time it’s taken to change the shape of southern hemisphere and, possibly, world rugby. The Pacific Islanders close their five-match campaign in Gosford, Australia, on Saturday against South Africa.

The last time The Open Championship visited Royal Troon Colin Montgomerie was the hottest golfer in Europe. Over the past three years two South African golfers — Ernie Els and Retief Goosen — have usurped Montgomerie’s hegemony of the European Order of Merit. Last week Goosen leapfrogged Els to lead the standings.

Various parliamentary committees have tried over the years to consign the Springbok emblem to the dustbin of history, and only rugby has an official dispensation to retain it. Next week South Africa will take the field in New South Wales with a new jersey bearing a new Springbok logo.

Some people are never happy, as Brian Cohen once remarked about an ex-leper. The Springboks have won all three of their home Tests against northern-hemisphere opposition, scoring 13 tries in the process, and yet everyone is queuing up to remind them that the All Blacks and the Wallabies are waiting around the corner.

It’s only two years since South Africa last played Wales but it seems like a lifetime. Then, as now, the Springboks played the first two games of the season in Bloemfontein and Cape Town and, perhaps more pertinently, they were also looking ahead to a brave new world under a new coach.

When England’s team to play the All Blacks in Dunedin this Saturday was announced there were dark mutterings in the land where they haven’t won the World Cup since 1987. Clive Woodward was doing what he did in 1998, selecting a deliberately weak team to fulfil onerous end-of-season fixtures against strong southern hemisphere opposition.