Struggling Montpellier in for a shake-up as White takes over coaching reins
FORMER Springbok coach Jake White will have to hit the deck running after taking over at struggling French club Montpellier.
There will be little time to settle in as his new side host defending European and Top 14 champions Toulon this weekend.
White will take charge of the coaching unit on a short-term contract after Montpellier’s head coach, Fabien Galthie, got the boot. White’s first order of business in trying to find a quick-fix, might be to install a new captain. He will reunite with Ben Mowen, who captained the Brumbies when the South African guided the Australian team to the Super Rugby final last year.
Mowen quit Super Rugby and the Wallaby captaincy earlier this year.
Installing him as captain might, however, prove an unpopular move as France flanker Fulgence Qued- raogo is Montpellier’s club captain, but White is not unaccustomed to swimming upstream.
The White-Mowen combination gelled well at the Brumbies and it might prove the rock on which the club’s restoration plan is built.
The South Africans at the club will have mixed reaction to White’s appointment.
Springboks Pat Cilliers and Wynand Olivier play there, as does JP du Plessis, but the man who will per- haps feel the most unease, is former Cheetahs centre Robert Ebersohn.
A lot of White’s game revolves around big-framed muscle men hitting the gainline and Ebersohn might find he does not quite fit that profile in the same way Kiwi wrecking ball teammate Rene Ranger does.
Montpellier also boast tough-as-teak France tighthead, Nicolas Mas, as well as Kiwi utility back Anthony Tuitavaki.
Former Bok No 8 Sean Sowerby is expected to take charge of the forwards, while the backs will be under the tutelage of erstwhile France centre Stephane Glas.
Although Galthie’s contract runs until 2017, the team had been underperforming with four successive defeats that meant their elimination from the European Champions Cup, while their form in the Top 14, where they have slipped to eighth, has been underwhelming.
The final straw came when they lost to bottom-placed Castres 27-9, with Rory Kockott kicking 17 points last weekend.
White, a two-time IRB coach of the year, had been technical adviser to the Tongan national team after he vacated his position as director of rugby at the Sharks.
His contract with Montpellier is understood to be for only six months, which will free him up for involvement in the Rugby World Cup which kicks off in September.