After seeing the evidence, Jake White gives verdict on Springboks missing Rugby Championship

Former Springboks coach Jake White has given his verdict on whether or not the South African Rugby Union should have sent a Springboks side to the 2020 Rugby Championship.

This weekend Dave Rennie’s Wallabies hung on to claim a famous 24-22 win over the All Blacks in Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. That defeat aside, Ian Foster’s All Blacks have looked very much like the dominant force of old, freshly injected with a raft of new, exciting talent against the team.

Currently in charge at the Bulls franchise in SA, Jake White has coached around the globe and famously led South Africa to a Rugby World Cup win in 2007, and he thinks it would have been wrong to put an unprepared Springboks side up against ‘that quality and intensity’.

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Writing in a column for TheXV.rugby about captaincy, White took time in a few paragraphs at the end to give his two cents on the matter.

“Finally, as a footnote, I want to touch on the decision not to send the Springboks to Australia for the Rugby Championship.

“Having watched the standard of the rugby between Australia and New Zealand in the Bledisloe Cup series, it would have been unfair for us as world champions and Rugby Championship winners to have been exposed to that quality and intensity without proper preparation.

“As the No1 team in the world, there is a target on us. If New Zealand and Australia had been in our position, they would have done the same. The top tennis players and top golfers will not enter a Major without proper preparations.

“After seven months of no rugby, to expect a group of players to just assemble is unrealistic. And no coach-captain combination would relish that scenario.”

White is overseeing a revival at the Bull Blues, who this weekend consolidated their position at the top of the Vodacom Super Rugby Unlocked standings by defeating the Emirates Lions by 30-25 in a thrilling derby.

You can read Jake Whites’s full column and many more great pieces of rugby journalism over at TheXV.rugby.