It’s always interesting to follow the fortunes of former national coaches, especially when they switch allegiance and then come back to face South African opposition.
Almost without fail, there is controversy, but occasionally there is a lighter side, as was evidenced by Jake White’s return with the flourishing Brumbies to Durban this week.
White looked like a man who had just come from a long holiday.
The former Springbok coach was glowing in his praise of the Brumbies this season, as well as the way that they have embraced the South African culture when it comes to rugby.
So jolly and jovial was Jake that he even called the typical Aussie player “smart and inquisitive”, and he has embraced his challenge to return the Brumbies to the heights they routinely scaled at the turn of the century.
There is no longer the half-back pairing of George Gregan and Stephen Larkham directing traffic anymore, but White has a new breed of player at his disposal, and he has also handed a second chance to Clyde Rathbone.
The “laaitie” with an Aussie twang was already bracing himself for the inevitable “advice” he received last night from the King’s Park faithful.
But it would have sounded like sweet music compared to where he was a year ago, crocked and considering a future without a rugby ball in his hands.
Every now and then, the game throws up second chances, and White and Rathbone, both seem to be thriving in their new environment.
On the other end of the Antipodean “happy scale”, Mickey Arthur is probably wondering just where all his luck went.
When he took over the Aussie cricket team, the former Proteas minder still had the Messrs Ponting, Hussey, Haddin and a snarling set of young fast bowlers coming through. The future looked promising, and he would have expected to joust with Graeme Smith’s charges for bragging rights in Test cricket.
But, somewhere between Brisbane and Bangalore, Arthur lost the plot and, seemingly, the confidence of his team and fans with his strange decisions.
The rotation policy that he has instilled has been rubbished openly by the likes of James Pattinson. At that age, all a young tear-away wants to do is bowl his heart out for Australia.
To keep missing every other game, when in form, makes precious little sense, however Arthur has tried to spin it.
But that’s the least of his problems now. After this week’s homework debacle, Arthur doesn’t even have a squad to rotate. The axing of four players, including the influential Shane Watson, has made the once cock-a-hoop Aussies the laughing stock of the cricket world.
What the hell he hoped to gain from inviting the thoughts of such wise heads as Messrs Siddle and Lyons is a wonder, and the whole thing has backfired in his face.
England, licking their lips at the prospect of an Ashes double dose, are having a field day stoking the fires, with former players rubbishing the chances of the men from Down Under.
As for the former players of Australia, all fiercely proud Baggy Green merchants of the past, the whole, sorry episode has been an embarrassment for them.
One wonders, though, just how Arthur’s exercise would have gone down if he was coaching the Aussie vintage that had Warne, McGrath and, perhaps Steve Waugh in tow. They would have told him to take his homework and shove it.
The smart money is that he won’t even see another Boxing Day Test, so low is his stock in Australia right now.
Simply put, the Aussies are ready to have the Mickey taken out of them.
For good. - Sunday Independent