France are red hot but you can’t look at this Six Nations and know how teams will do at the World Cup

EVERYONE has been talking about the World Cup this week. Who is ready? Who isn’t ready? Should Eddie Jones get fired? Should Wayne Pivac get fired? Should Gregor Townsend get fired? Should the bus driver get fired? Every coach has been there. When South Africa lost to Australia and Argentina before the 2019 World Cup, people were asking if I should get fired.

I took on my Springboks job 18 months before the World Cup — this time four years ago — and so much can change during that time. When I took on the role, I booked a room upstairs at The Fat Butcher restaurant in Stellenbosch and spent three or four hours drinking wine and eating steak with former Springbok coaches. They gave me so much different advice, but there was one thing that came out of everyone’s mouth.

They said: ‘When you write down those 23 names for the match, you cannot have one banggat.’ It’s Afrikaans for scaredy cat. You need 23 guys who will turn up when the going gets tough.

There’s only one way you really find if someone is a banggat. That’s on the pitch. You can have the prettiest moves in training but you don’t find out until the match whether they can go for the drop-goal or make the big tackle with five minutes to go. You try new guys out and some don’t make it. You can’t stand on the mountain tops and say, ‘Guys, we might lose this weekend because I’m trying this,’ but sometimes it doesn’t work out. We lost to Australia and Argentina because we were trying new things. Finetuning. Of course fans want to see a win on Saturday. That’s their job. That’s normal. Us as coaches would love to win every game, too.

You can’t look at the latest performances in the Six Nations to determine how teams will perform at the World Cup. Something might look awful right now but it could be part of the planning. Teething problems. There are different mechanics to every organisation so you don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes. That’s why it annoys me when Clive Woodward tells us how to do things in South Africa because he is not privy to what we are really doing.

Everybody can see that France are red hot. Everybody knows France are the favourites. Everybody can see Antoine Dupont is a bull terrier. I can’t wait to see him against Faf de Klerk. France’s coach Fabien Galthie spent a week with me at Munster. He would come in at 6am and he would play soccer barefoot with the college kids at lunch. There was passion in the man. I knew he was a smart coach.

England are getting a lot of criticism but they will be strong at the World Cup. Don’t tell me Eddie has suddenly become a bad coach. He is a good rugby man who texted me when I was in trouble with World Rugby. I admire him in a weird kind of way. I don’t agree with all of his strategies in the media but that’s not to say I’m right and he’s wrong. He made a lot of changes to his team recently but I’m sure he has a plan for the World Cup.

Clive says Eddie should have a rugby expert to report to? Clive knows English rugby better than me. Maybe a buffer between Eddie and the board and the fans could be a good thing that would allow him to focus on the coaching. Or maybe he enjoys that stuff. If you can deal with the board, the crowd, Clive Woodward, the media, then that’s 60 per cent of the work done. When I was coach, I didn’t want to speak to the CEO and board members. I wanted to speak to a rugby person.

Like I said, every organisation is different. The MD of Apple has a different job description to the MD of Microsoft. The director of rugby role with Italy is different to the director of rugby role within South Africa. Franco Smith does not run on water for Italy because that does not work for them. Fine. I run on water for the Springboks because it works for us. If Eddie wants to run on the water for England, good for him. World Rugby have a working group and they want to stop directors of rugby from running on the water. If I change my job title to director of coaching, can I run the water on then? Maybe I can be the ball boy and chat to Bongi Mbonambi at the lineout!

Personally, I don’t see the problem with the waterboy thing. Of course the earpiece is not for the coaches to tell me that this bottle is only half full, let’s be honest about that. It’s not Jacques Nienaber saying, ‘S**t, Rassie, you only have 300ml left in your bottle!’ You can read defensive systems from the top of the stands that players can’t see on the pitch. Is that making a joke of the game? Or is it taking the game forward? When Jurgen Klopp is standing on the side shouting instructions to his Liverpool players do you honestly think he is not receiving information from guys in the stands? I know Clive feels strongly about that! I would happily talk to him some time.

My point is, you can’t compare like with like. Ultimately we all have similar goals, but the English structure is very different to the South African structure. People say the English system is the envy of the world because it has all the resources. I disagree.

People say South Africa are stupid for allowing our players to leave. Is it stupid? Look at England, there are six or seven South African players taking the places of young English players at Premiership clubs. For us, it’s wonderful. Among about 32 players we are looking at, they’re probably earning 400 million rand that doesn’t have to come off our accounts.

Meanwhile, back in South Africa, we have the next South African lock coming through because there is no financial incentive for players to come here. Is it good for England that Faf de Klerk is starting ahead of Raffi Quirke at Sale? No. Is it

If you can deal with the board, the crowd, the media, that’s 60% of the job

Fabien Galthie spent a week with me at Munster, he’d play soccer with the college kids at lunch

It could take one big game to turn it around. A lot can change in 18 months

good for South Africa? Yes, it works for us.

Going into a World Cup, you need depth. Ideally two world-class players per position and one youngster chasing hard across the team. No banggats! A few years ago, France introduced a tougher policy about foreign players in their club teams and that’s made them successful. You can’t change structures in 18 months but you can change belief. You don’t do that by playing videos of Al Pacino. For us, we got that belief when we beat New Zealand in New Zealand. Suddenly people stopped saying that I should be fired. After that, even the referees believed we were going to win.

It may just take one big performance to turn things around — a lot can change in the next 18 months. PS Italy beating Wales obviously closed a lot of arguments about them being kicked out of the Six Nations. Let’s hope they go from strength to strength now, then it’s great for rugby. I would still love to see South Africa in the Six Nations, but I think that would only be a scenario if the competition expanded to seven teams.