Why Jake has mountain to climb at Loftus
Overall rugby brain, coaching pedigree and enriching volume of global rugby “air miles”? Hard to dispute, even if his player relations side of things has occasionally been open to question.
But those qualities alone will not mean that Jake White is about to whisk the Bulls off quickly on a magic carpet ride.
I believe the biggest impediment to the Springbok World Cup 2007-winning coach sparking a renaissance at Loftus – with respect to the squad as it stands – is the lack of compelling enough existing raw materials for him to work with.
There is inevitable talk that White assuming the director of rugby role (soon enough including the “tracksuit” duty too) will lead to an influx of decent South African names from abroad, considering that the Bulls are backed nowadays by the stabilising financial muscle of billionaire co-owners Johann Rupert and Patrice Motsepe.
Yet that is still easier said than done, especially with the rand tottering like never before against major foreign currencies in the wake of the coronavirus crisis and an ill-timed Moody’s downgrading of the country’s debt rating to junk status.
Read the full story on: News24.