Former Springbok coach Jake White expects the Wallabies to get another whipping from the South Africans in this weekend’s Rugby Championship Test.
After the Boks klapped Australia 33-7 in the Rugby Championship opener in Brisbane last weekend, Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus decided to switch things up by making 10 changes to his starting team.
But while Erasmus’ big calls have some Bok fans paaping about a Wallabies backlash, White writes in his RugbyPass column that the Aussie team’s lack of depth won’t see them even come close to beating a Bok tweedespan.
White writes: “I don’t know where they’re going to find players to overturn the Boks. They’ve lost two of their locks, Nick Frost and Jeremy Williams to concussion and Filipo Daugunu to a broken leg, and they’re scrambling to put a squad together.
“It’s all gloom and doom. It shows you how far they’ve regressed.”
Seeing the Wallabies’ continued fall from grace also makes White glad he never got to coach them after being asked by Rugby Australia to apply as successor to Robbie Deans.
He explains: “It was during the Lions tour of Australia in 2013.
“Obviously, I was very excited and presented to the board, but I lost out [to Ewen McKenzie] and didn’t get the job.
“I remember bumping into Robbie in Japan afterwards and I said, ‘jeez, I was a bit disappointed I didn’t get the gig’, and his words to me were: ‘Jake, you’ve dodged a bullet’.”
francois.dewet@inl.co.za