Out of Africa and back in battle
‘I just love my footy, I like being here, the challenge of it and being part of a Heineken Cup.’ Former All Black Brad Thorn ahead of the overnight Heineken Cup final featuring his Leinster team. With his Brumbies side in the country, David Long sat down
THERE is one question all coaches who have won a Rugby World Cup face – what now?
After reaching the pinnacle as a rugby coach, the dilemma has always been what to do next.
Having achieved the ultimate, there is only one way to go.
There hasn’t been a World Cupwinning coach yet who has gone on to achieve more greatness.
Rod Macqueen leading the Wallabies to a series victory over the Lions in 2001, two years after they won the World Cup in Wales, is the only example of continued success but his reputation has been tarnished after a disastrous season with the Rebels last year.
As for Jake White, he decided to take a four-year break, but this season with the Brumbies he’s already proving how successful a coach he is.
Up until 2004 the Brumbies were the only team that could rival the Crusaders in terms of consistent success – the Blues have always flitted from being great to terrible.
The Brumbies’ multi-phase attacking play revolutionised the game but they haven’t made the playoffs for the past seven years, as stories of player power, political infighting and poor coaching appointments brought the franchise to its knees.
The lowest point came last season when they finished a terrible 13th, winning just four games and losing 11.
But under White they have been transformed and sit atop the Australian conference. A point worth noting by all of those involved in the Blues, who won’t appoint next year’s coach until July – that White puts a big part of the Brumbies’ success down to being given the job 11 months before he’d take charge of his first game.
‘‘The one thing I always found difficult to understand was coaches getting a job at the end of a season,’’ White told Sunday News.
‘‘Because then you’re inheriting the problems that have come out of that season and you can’t change a lot of things if you get the job late.
‘‘What was nice for me is that I got the job in March.
‘‘I didn’t get on to the payroll until the end of the season but I knew I had it, so it gave me time to watch Brumbies’ games with interest and also look at other players that I thought I could get to the Brumbies.
‘‘I could get a feel of who was going and who was available and also how I wanted to play with what was left over.
‘‘So that was from the competition point of view, but what was also nice was that when I did join the team in June I could start with my camps from a conditioning point of view, which was vital.
‘‘I didn’t want to come in in Novem- ber and try to start a campaign for Super Rugby.’’
White felt that he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t after the World Cup in 2007. Incredibly, the South African Rugby Union had already told him that he would be keeping his job after 2007, regardless of how well the Springboks did but he decided not to jump into another coaching job.
‘‘Whatever you do is wrong,’’ he said.
‘‘You look at Clive Woodward. He stayed on for the Lions series and people castigated him and say he was mad to do it because they got pumped in New Zealand.
‘‘If you look at Graham Henry, people are saying why does he want to help Argentina?
‘‘I took time off and I did it based on what I had learned from Clive [Woodward, England’s 2003 World Cupwinning coach].
‘‘Clive said to me that if he had his time over again he would have reflected on what happened and waited for the right job to come along.
‘‘But I got castigated in the media in my country because they said I took too long out of the game.
‘‘One never knows what the right thing to do is. If I had my time over again, maybe I would have got back into rugby coaching a bit quicker.
‘‘Whatever decision you make after being a World Cup-winning coach, it’s going to be tough. If you do the speaking circuit, people say you’re trying to milk it. If you go into coaching, they say you’re crazy because you’re trying to replicate things in a World Cup campaign.
‘‘To be fair, for World Cup-winning coaches, you’re in a glass bowl and you just want to get out of it for a while.’’
While White is enjoying life at the Brumbies and it scratches his competitive itch, he admits that he would like to get back into test rugby again eventually.
‘‘I must say that anyone who plays or coaches at test level always wants to have that again,’’ he said.
‘‘You talk to any ex-player once they’ve given up, they always want to have one more crack at it.
‘‘There are times where I really long for that next step up, but what I get satisfaction out of now is sharing my information and knowledge with these boys who haven’t been there yet, because they get excited when I relay stories to them about how things work.
‘‘I get as much satisfaction at teaching these boys as I do at international level.
‘‘It doesn’t mean that that won’t change. I’d like to coach international rugby again, and I do miss it but I am enjoying the fact that I’m in a new environment where I’m wanted.
‘‘They want me to be here and share the knowledge that I have of the cutting edge of the game.’’