The last time, in fact the only time, the Springboks clashed with the All Blacks outside a major metropolitan area in SA one of the coaches’ job was hanging by a thread.
The All Blacks play the Boks in Mbombela next Saturday and their coach Ian Foster needs a positive result to repel the vultures who are swooping with an ever tightening circle.
Curiously, the under fire Foster may draw from the experience of Jake White, who went into his Springbok team’s clash with the All Blacks in Rustenburg in 2006, with all kinds of claws out to get him.
He had a hole out of which he had to dig himself.
After five straight defeats he was facing his darkest hour as Springbok coach and the All Blacks were ready to close the hole and draw a line under his reign as Bok coach.
As the teams prepare to engage in combat in Mbombela, the spade is in the other camp.
Foster will leave New Zealand for Mbombela under a long dark cloud after his team suffered five defeats in a row, including an unprecedented series loss to Ireland.
His situation is almost as tenuous as White’s all those years ago.
Victory in Rustenburg was non-negotiable for White if he was going to take the Springboks to the Rugby World Cup in France the following year.
He and his players were running the risk of joining Springbok teams with results etched in infamy. In 1965 the Springboks suffered six defeats in a row, but their losing streak in fact started the year before when they went down to France.
Under Johan Claassen (1), Boy Louw (2) and Hennie Muller (4) they lost seven in a row before, against the prevailing tide, they snapped the losing streak in Christchurch.
Given his near brush with SA Rugby’s firing squad, White’s Houdini act is now part of Springbok folklore.
In the post-isolation era Rudolf Straeuli’s team won one out of seven in 2002, but the two-point victory over the Wallabies at Ellis Park came smack bang in the middle of that sequence.
The Boks lost four in a row under Nick Mallett in 2000, as they did the previous year.
White was in similar treacherous waters ahead of the Rustenburg clash, and indeed his team looked destined to go down until Andre Pretorius landed a penalty that sent headline writers scrambling.
One Sunday paper, however, stuck to their loaded guns and rather over-eagerly announced White’s demise with the headline “Koebaai Jake” (Goodbye Jake).
How does all this help Foster? you may ask. The boat he finds himself in is not dissimilar from the damp and creaky vessel once occupied by White.
White’s team beat the Wallabies the following weekend, but consecutive defeats at the start of their end of year tour got the suits at SA Rugby all jumpy.
White was forced to fly from the UK to Cape Town to explain himself. He did that, flew back to London, and watched his team beat England.
The following year Tri-Nations defeats to the All Blacks (2) and Australia blotted his otherwise impeccable copybook (he did rest several senior players for the away leg). The Boks won 14 out of 17 games, including one that saw the Paris night sky light up at the conclusion of the Rugby World Cup.
Given his near brush with SA Rugby’s firing squad, White’s Houdini act is now part of Springbok folklore.
He didn’t reach the game’s highest peaks by accident. He enlisted the help of Eddie Jones, who guided the Wallabies to the 2003 final, and the Australian is said to have had significant input in the Springboks’ ascent to the top of the rugby world.
Hierarchical changes have now been foisted on Foster, and he would do well to embrace the addition of fellow Kiwi Joe Schmidt, another former Test coach of some repute.
White’s travails should give Foster hope as it serves as a reminder the Boks, and indeed the All Blacks, can never be written off. The All Blacks coach will fly to SA, no doubt desperate to rid himself of that long, dark cloud and perhaps go upwards and onwards to a brightly lit Parisian night of his own.
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