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Cape Town - Former Springbok coach Jake White admits he’s “jealous” at the position new national coach Rassie Erasmus finds himself in.
This comes after Erasmus was last week confirmed as the new Springbok coach.
Erasmus has a six-year deal and he will combine his role of national coach with that of SA Rugby’s director of rugby.
White, who coached the Springboks to World Cup glory in 2007, expressed his views via a column for the All Out Rugby website.
“Rassie Erasmus must be the envy of every coach in the world. In South Africa, he’s Mr Rugby,” White wrote. “In this game, if you can take a job where the board wants you, the CEO is your mate and you get everything you ask for, it’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven. It doesn’t get better than that. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I’m very jealous - Allister Coetzee, Nick Mallett, Rudolf Straeuli and Ian McIntosh must feel the same way."
According to White, Erasmus will struggle to juggle the responsibilities of director of rugby and national coach.
“He’s admitted that he’ll spend 70 percent of his time on the Springboks,” White continued. “Between 2012 and 2016, SA Rugby paid the same director of rugby to spend 100 percent of his time putting systems in place and streamlining pathways for all of the national teams, except the Springboks. Then, during Coetzee’s term, SA Rugby realised that they actually needed a director of rugby and they were very pleased to bring back the guy who had left the job 18 months earlier. And now it’s okay that the director of rugby only spends 30 percent of his time in that role.”
White said he was keen to share his knowledge but was rejected.
“I offered to fill the vacant post of director of rugby for free, only to eventually be told that I wasn’t part of their plans.”
