Former World Cup-winning coach Jake White says he offered to fill the SA Rugby director of rugby position ‘for free’ last year.
In his column for AllOutRugby, White raises questions over how Rassie Erasmus will fulfil a dual role as director of rugby and Bok head coach, while suggesting that he had been approached by SA Rugby last year to return to the fray.
‘I would like to know what has happened to the director of rugby role, which they said was incredibly important – so much so that they scrambled to reacquire Erasmus from Munster. Now that he’s back, they’ve also given him the national coaching job and he’s admitted that he’ll spend 70% of his time on the Springboks.
‘Between 2012 and 2016, SA Rugby paid the same director of rugby to spend 100% of his time putting systems in place and streamlining pathways for all of the national teams, except the Springboks.
‘Then, during [Allister] 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% of his time in that role.
‘Either SA Rugby has been deceitful about the reasons why they originally brought Erasmus back, or they’ve massively oversold the importance of the director of rugby role. So which one is it?’
White also questioned why SA Rugby would appoint someone to a director of rugby role if they could not dedicate all their attention to it.
‘SA Rugby can’t claim that Erasmus is doubling up due to financial constraints because, after being approached by them last year, 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.’
White added that Erasmus must be the envy of every coach in the world after receiving the deal that he did.
‘In South Africa, he’s Mr Rugby. SA Rugby’s board has appointed Erasmus the director of rugby and Springbok head coach, and they’ve given him an unprecedented six-year contract.
‘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.’
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