Jake White says Jacques Nienaber, rather than experimenting, should’ve just selected a Springbok side capable of winning every Test of the series against Wales.
In a wide-ranging column for Rugby Pass, White suggested Nienaber was encouraged by Rassie Erasmus to make 14 changes to the Bok XV that lost to Wales in Bloemfontein, but “missed a trick” as it has now set up a decider in Cape Town on Saturday.
The 2007 World Cup-winning Bok coach argues that whitewashing Wales in the Republic would’ve been motivation enough for the 42-man Bok squad, and avoid the undue pressure the Welsh’s first win in SA has caused.
“Making 14 changes obviously didn’t work for the Springboks and personally, I think Jacques Nienaber missed a trick. What I’m expecting on Saturday is massive amounts of pressure that he didn’t need,” White wrote.
“I’m told his rationale for picking that second Test team was because he wanted that group of players to know what it was like to win a series, he didn’t want them to just be playing a dead rubber in the third Test.
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“To answer that, I’d say I don’t think there should ever be a dead rubber Test when you’re playing at home.
“The job of a national coach is to win Test matches. National coaches shouldn’t use Tests to see if players are good enough, that is what A sides or training is for.
“I don’t know if Nienaber picked that team on his own, he may have discussed it with Rassie and others but you’re not a national coach to learn lessons. You learn that at age-grade or club level – I mean that sincerely – there’s a reason people go through a system to become national coach.
“Whoever comes out on top wins the series, and Wales had never won a game, let alone a series on South African soil a week ago. Wales will come brimming with confidence. I’ve coached against them, and the one thing they don’t do is go away.”
“In my experience, the most successful Springbok coaches keep the best teams together,” he wrote. “Nick Mallett, myself or Rassie Erasmus in 2019. It’s always been that way.
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“So, what will Nienaber have learnt? Well, firstly he’ll also know two weeks is insufficient time to prepare a side for a Test series.
“Also, I know some commentators were saying it’s a case of seeing if some players were good enough to play at that level but I don’t buy that. The selectors will have had years to put that team together.”
The Vodacom Bulls director of rugby also warned that the Boks sticking with a tried-and-trusted lineup – which Nienaber has reverted to for Saturday – could backfire for the world champions in France next year.
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“For Saturday’s Test, I see Nienaber has gone back to the team he thinks will serve him well. Six forwards on the bench, two backs. The biggest, heaviest side he can muster,” White wrote. “Ahead of France, I don’t think there will be too much of a departure from what’s been working for them in the past few years.
“In fact, I think it’s obvious they are going to do exactly the same thing they did in Japan, but one of the things I’ve learned as I’ve got older is that if you try to repeat the same feat again and again, it doesn’t work.
“In 1991, the Wallabies won the World Cup under Bob Dwyer and they tried the same thing in 1995 and came unstuck. There were a lot of critics who said you can’t just copy and paste what you achieved in a previous World Cup. It was the same with the All Blacks in 1987, and they lost in 1991 to the Wallabies.”
