If You Were Jake White, Would This Make You Happy?

It now looks likely that highly regarded Cheetahs coach Rassie Erasmus will be used "as a consultant" to the South Africa national team at the rugby World Cup in France 2007.

This has been confirmed by Andy Marinos, who is South Africa's manager of national teams (whatever one of them is).

From the perspective of the Springboks, it makes good sense to utilise as much rugby knowledge as possible to bring the World Cup home to South Africa, that's for sure.

And Marinos paints a very flattering portrait of what Erasmus could bring to the 'Boks management and coaching team, saying :

"Rassie has clearly made a big impact as coach, he is well versed in the technical aspects of the game and we would like to make use of his knowledge."

"The other positive aspect is that he has been to the World Cup tournament before as a player."

But, be honest, if you were Jake White - South Africa's head coach - would you be 100% happy with your employers hiring as a "technical advisor" a guy who was been tipped to replace you. No? If it was me, I wouldn't be happy either.

These are the kind of ideas that sound good in theory but often lead to conflict and ultimately undermine the team they are suppose to help.

Watch this space.