KEY POINTS:
Applications for Jake White's job closed on Friday. If that seems strange to you, considering he's led the Springboks to their second World Cup victory, matters get even stranger.
It now appears White may not, after all, be jettisoned by the South African Rugby Union who have been coming under such intense pressure to increase the number of black and coloured players in the Springboks.
Few people will have missed the originally muted reception of the World Cup win by black South African politicians, all of whom have been banging on mightily about the need for 'transition' (translation: more black players) in the Boks.
The political edge to these matters became sharp enough that White signalled he would be 'transitioning' off somewhere else after the World Cup - where he might be able to select a rugby team without the Government snatching his team sheet off him and substituting some names.
Don't laugh. It happened. Remember the Luke Watson saga, where Oregan Hoskins, head of SARU, overruled White and wrote in Watson's name in White's 45-man, pre-World Cup squad.
The squad became 46. Watson, a well-performed flanker from a white family who were heroes of the struggle against apartheid, was the subject of an astonishing statement from Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool who said White should regard Watson as a black player (even though he's white).
Confused? Uh-huh. That White managed to get his mostly-white team on the podium to lift the Webb Ellis trophy was remarkable. His gamble, however, was even bigger than Graham Henry's because White stuck to his guns, choosing players on merit and risking the sack.
This resulted in only two players of colour - Bryan Habana and JP Pietersen being in the side which won, a fact the South African Government has been ramming into White's ear like a sharp spike.
It's a little misleading.
In White's 46-man squad, there were 14 players of colour and eight after White trimmed his squad to the regulation 30 (Watson was left at home, predictably). Over a quarter of the squad seems a goodly number for transition, even if it was clear that prop Gurthro Steenkamp, centres Waylon Murray and Wayne Julies plus wingers Breyton Paulse, Ashwin Willemse and Akona Ndungane were only ever going to play a bit part next to Habana's and Pietersen's starring roles.
And that is what White did right - and Graham Henry did wrong. White stuck to his tried, tested and true; Henry stuck to you-know-what.
But politicians being what they are, they focused only on two black players being in the run-on XV and trumpeted the injustice. Black or white, a politician plays to an audience.
Perhaps now that players like Steenkamp - who will replace the veteran Os du Randt at prop - are coming into the top team, the Government forces massing against White (whom they seemed to think had betrayed them somehow) have quietened a little.
Maybe - but it is more likely that the politicians, like their ilk everywhere, have realised that a world champion is a powerful electoral weapon and that, with the corresponding sagging in the international rankings of the national football team, it is better to promote national pride rather than to provoke.
The footballers, known as Bafana Bafana ('The Boys') are in disarray and have slid to 83rd in the world. South Africa is due to hold the 2010 football World Cup but there have been any number of problems and suggestions that all will not go smoothly.
Better by far to hold the bird in the hand and take the glory. Adding to that was Australia's interest in White as coach of the Wallabies. Transition is all very well as a political concept and vote-gatherer but if White turned up with the mostly-white Wallabies and gave the Boks a hiding, that would only confirm the misgivings among the population that rugby is the white man's game.
President Thabo Mbeki doused some of the racially-motivated hysteria by saying: "Here is this team that went right through the tournament without losing a game. We end up with the player of the year, the coach of the year and the team of the year. Drop the coach - why?"
However, the politicians have a point. In the end, it will be far better for South African rugby if they have a fully integrated game.
But they are attacking this thing from the wrong end.
Let White and the (majority) whites win the World Cup and everything else. That brings credibility. Then work from the bottom up to get more black and coloured players involved and promoted through the ranks.
That's how you grow a game, over time, not by making grand political gestures at the top end that fool no one. Reports from South Africa suggest that SARU and the Government are doing little at grassroots level.
On November 7, Jake White will name his 26-30 man squad to Wales for a test on November 24 and a match against the Barbarians. The racial make-up of that squad (see below) will be fascinating and will be a pointer to White's future (his contract expires on December 31).
Full of whites - bye, bye Jake. More coloured players? Then the future could well be White.
