Publications
Partners
Cape Town - Former Proteas and Australia coach Mickey Arthur has said he called former Springbok coach Jake White to apologise for ‘possibly’ ruining his chances of becoming Wallaby coach.
Speaking to the BallzRadio's website, Arthur said he was enjoying life in Perth where he has settled with his family.
Arthur currently runs his own cricket academy, is director of cricket at a private school, has several media contracts including a radio show, corporate work and has set up a high performance centre for the Western Force Super Rugby team.
White and Arthur became good friends while Arthur was coach of the Australian cricket team and White was head coach of the Brumbies.
Arthur explained that he had been national coach of the Australian team at a particularly volatile time in Australian sporting history as three of their biggest sports had teams with foreign coaches and had performed poorly.
“There was a point, and it caused much conjecture in Australian sport, where I was coach of the (national) cricket team, New Zealander Robbie Deans was coach of the rugby team and Germany's Holger Osieck was coach of the soccer team.
“So the Australians being a very sports-mad country, suddenly had international coaches coaching three of their so-called marquee sports.”
“Funnily enough Robbie, Holger and I (were fired) at the same time.”
“I felt so sorry for Jake, because I went virtually in the same week that they were appointing the next Australian rugby coach.”
“I phoned Jake and apologised and we shared a joke, because me getting sacked in that week possibly led to him not being appointed for the Australian rugby job, which we often laugh and joke about,” Arthur said.
After White missed out on the Australian national coaching position he decided to leave the Brumbies to be closer to his family, which resulted in his current role as director of rugby at the Cell C Sharks where he has resumed his allegiance with former Springbok skipper John Smit.
