Standing on a balcony at St Mary’s RFC on Tuesday looking across at the immaculate pitch with Springbok Willie le Roux and his Bulls team-mates cantering around the perimeter and kicking balls, Jake White was holding court and developing his own agenda for the week that was in it. That’s what coaches do.
White was asked questions about the Bulls’ misfires in two previous URC finals, where they were beaten, and was quizzed on Leinster breezing in and out of form over the past few months.
With the sun shining and the microphones and cameras pointing at him, regardless of the questions asked, White was articulating his principal talking point for the day. That was, according to him, the pitiful chasm between the two teams and the notion of Leinster cloistered in Dublin, where they thrive and attract the best overseas players that money can buy.
White was selling the media an embarrassment-of-riches narrative that would be dutifully printed and that that players might read. Perhaps his words would subliminally sink in and soften thoughts towards the Bulls being a dangerous and formidable outfit on Saturday in Croke Park.
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“You talk about the Glasgows, the Edinburghs, the Leinsters, they’re laden with international players. You guys know the premium of what it is to be an international player,” said White.
His mastery of sports psychology, leveraging his points and staying on message, was impressive. White has been around for some time and won the World Cup with South Africa in 2007. He never played any serious rugby after school, instead becoming a teacher and pursuing something at which he quickly became adept – coaching.
In the 40 or so years since then, the 61-year-old has coached seven other clubs across several continents as well as the South African under-21 team, with whom he won the World Cup in 2002.
But it seemed clear on Tuesday that he saw the media as messengers and if he made the short session quotable enough and engaging, which he did, his opinion that Leinster were an impregnable institution of excellence might filter back to the training pitch in UCD.
“Leinster are the benchmark of what I do and how I prepare, and the benchmark of what’s happened at the club,” he said of his approach at the Bulls.
[ Leinster v Bulls: Clash of rugby titans could be grandest of all grand finalsOpens in new window ]
White also spent his time describing how the Bulls had far outstripped expectations of everybody in the last four years, that they were the youngest of most teams in the league. His players, he explained, have punched above their weight.
Still, here they were, in the final match of the season with Leinster. He was setting up not just a favourites-and-underdog URC final but a David-and-Goliath situation to be played not just at home in Dublin but on the sacred ground of Croke Park.
“Look, they [Leinster] are years ahead guys. Let’s not kid ourselves,” he said. “Twelve guys going on the [Lions] tour this summer ... They [Leinster] probably have more Irish international caps than we have URC games under our belt.”
There is footage from the Lions tour of 1997, before the second Test match against South Africa in Kings Park, where coach Ian McGeechan is talking to his players. Over a few minutes he deifies them. He turns them into gods, willing them to believe they are extraordinary.
He convinces them that they are playing for something bigger than themselves – a concept that embraces many things, not least of all bravery, brotherhood and commitment to each other.
“And when you come to a day like this, you know why you do it all,” said McGeechan. “You know why you’ve been involved. It’s been a privilege – is a privilege. Because we’re something special.
“You’ll meet each other in the street in 30 years’ time, and there’ll just be a look, and you’ll know just how special some days in your life are.”
White was less elegiac on Tuesday. But he was a coach inflating and escalating the team he was hoping to beat. The point of difference was that he wasn’t aiming to empower his own players, as McGeechan had intended, but to get Leinster to believe in their own untouchable majesty.
“We have had three Springbok coaches coach the Bulls ... but I wonder how many international coaches have coached Leinster. I’m sure it’s a lot more than three,” he added. “I’ve read about the top 15 clubs and the budgets they have, and we weren’t mentioned in that top 15. Leinster, Toulouse, those sorts of clubs would be considered the top clubs in the world.”
Compliments showering down. Did he think Leinster would allow them to seep in, would Leo Cullen swallow it? Of course, Cullen was included too.
“Look at a guy like Leo Cullen, he’s a fantastic role model for what Leinster is all about. He has captained them, he’s coached them. He epitomises Leinster. I can only praise them. A lot of teams are trying to emulate what they have done, how they’ve done it.”
It raised the question about excessive praise softening up a team, distracting them and making them less effective. Or maybe it was simply about respect from a World Cup-winning coach.
