{"id":482132,"date":"2026-03-18T12:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/482132\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T12:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:20:09","slug":"jake-white-eyes-test-return-and-plots-springboks-downfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/482132\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake White eyes Test return and plots Springboks&#8217; downfall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Springbok World Cup-winning coach Jake White admits that he is ready to return to coaching and has unfinished business on the international stage as he looks for his next job.<\/p>\n<p>White, who led the Springboks to success in the 2004 Tri-Nations and then the 2007 World Cup, is a free agent after leaving the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/bulls\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bulls<\/a> last July and says that he is missing coaching.<\/p>\n<p>He had a stint as a technical advisor to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/tonga\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tonga<\/a> in 2014 and would love to mark the 20th anniversary of winning the Webb Ellis Cup with another crack at success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was 40 when I coached South Africa, and before I turned 44, I won the World Cup and had finished coaching them. I haven\u2019t been involved in coaching Test rugby since that time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so, when you say, do I want to get back? I still think I have unfinished business at the Test level. It\u2019s like taking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/sacha-mngomezulu\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu<\/a> out of Test rugby now.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773836409_289_815.png.webp.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> South Africa <\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773836409_844_804.png.webp.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> England <\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/live\/england-vs-south-africa\/?g=949566\/\" class=\"link-box\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">   <\/p>\n<p>\u201cTelling him he will never play again when he\u2019s first shown you that he can compete at that level. I coached South Africa, I know how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/south-africa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa<\/a> operate, I know South Africa are the benchmark.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know South Africa is probably going to have to get beaten for someone to win the World Cup. You would think that would be a sort of commodity in coaching,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>White, who will be 63 in December, is keen to give someone the benefit of the experience that he has accumulated at the very top level of the game over three decades and doesn\u2019t believe coaching should be a young man\u2019s game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy is it that younger coaches are in front in the queue to older coaches? <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn my time, serving your time and being around and getting all the knowledge you can was a bonus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhereas now, if you look around, a lot of coaches come in when they\u2019re in their 30s or mid 40s, and they jump the queue ahead of coaches who\u2019ve gone and served their time. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a reason why a coach gets better as he gets older. It\u2019s because the experiences and the knowledge he picks up, again, Eddie Jones had something this week, which is right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou only learn in front of 80,000 people when you\u2019re playing and you make those mistakes. You cannot simulate that in training. Do they go from that experience into becoming a better player? <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI brought Eddie Jones in because I realised that you know needed that experience, and he was the guy who had lost the World Cup final.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOther than Clive (Woodward), who won the World Cup, he was the next guy, and I was so lucky and so, so fortunate that he was available to come and help me with South Africa at that stage,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Springbok World Cup-winning coach Jake White admits that he is ready to return to coaching and has unfinished&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-482132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}