Jake White

The rugby romantic will say it can be done, because it has been done in the past, but I don’t think there’s enough time between now and the 2019 Rugby World Cup for the Springboks to turn it around.

I’m not saying it’s impossible for South Africa to be a force in Japan in 22 months’ time, but I’d say that line of thinking is more for the dreamer than for the guy who understands the quality of the competition you’re up against at a World Cup.

England coach Eddie Jones has compiled a dossier on the All Blacks based on the feedback he got from his British & Irish Lions players – that’s the level of homework that’s going on, so you can’t just arrive with two years to go and think you can catch up.

The people that want the Springbok job will say that you can build a team in two seasons. Kitch Christie got the job late in 1994 and ended up winning in 1995, but that was when the game was still moving from being an amateur sport into professionalism, and South African rugby was probably more professional than most other countries at that time.

As far back as I can remember Doc Craven was offering bursaries for players to come play at Stellenbosch. And the army would draft guys into a regiment to play for that province – so good players would go to Heidelberg to play for Transvaal, or Pretoria to play for Northerns. So, although it wasn’t playing for money, it was still very professional.

Jan Pickard offered guys jobs in the liquor industry and they were basically employed to work in the area so they could play for Western Province. They weren’t getting rich playing rugby but they were hand-picked to play for WP and those players worked out at the gym and trained because they were signed up to play rugby first, and then sell liquor second. Liquor reps could go to gym in the morning, get to the office late and leave early to go to training. And a lot of that group ended up going to the World Cup.

Kitch had a lot of those Transvaal players who were looked after by Doc Luyt. I remember them working for Mondi, a paper company, because one of the board members was involved at the union.

But times have changed and South Africa is not the only professional rugby nation anymore. It’s a lot more difficult to turn a team around in one or two seasons now because, no matter what you do in that time, the other countries have been doing it for the past three years.

If you look at what Joe Schmidt and Eddie Jones have been doing at Ireland and England, and then you’ve got Michael Cheika and Steve Hansen going to another world cup, those countries have got continuity and identity.

When other countries have kept consistency in selection and coaches, it’s a real mismatch if you’re trying to catch up to that.

Handre Pollard is a good example. Is he the flyhalf now or will Elton Jantjies have the inside lane once the World Cup comes round?

In New Zealand, even though Lima Sopoaga plays every now and then, Beauden Barrett is the starting No 10. People are still debating who South Africa’s first-choice flyhalf is. That’s the kind of thing you lose when you don’t have continuity in selection and coaches.

If there’s any truth to the rumours, the Boks will have a new coach next year and a new coach will have new ideas on selection and playing style.

In 1995, a provincial coach took all his players and went and won the World Cup on the back of provincial success. But you can’t do that anymore, especially in South Africa with the expectations that we have with team selections.

However, if any country could go from being rock bottom to a World Cup contender in two years, South Africa would be that country. There’s something in a rugby player that is easier to trigger when he’s been written off, and none more so than South Africans.

We are generally at our best when we have our back to the wall.