Mbeki Cabinet Put Their Shirts on White Staying With Springboks

The South African cabinet staged a show of support for the coach Jake White and his World Cup-winning team yesterday by wearing Springbok kit for their fortnightly meeting in Cape Town.

The government has criticized the team for not being racially representative of the country but since the win over England in the final in Paris on Saturday leading politicians seem to be tripping over themselves to show their support. Newspapers published front-page photographs of the president, Thabo Mbeki, and Trevor Manuel, the finance minister, wearing Springbok jerseys after photographers and reporters were briefly allowed into the normally off-limits cabinet meeting room.

"Everybody is really excited by the fact that we won the World Cup. We think the spirit in the country is very positive and cabinet wanted to express its full support and congratulations to the Springboks," the government's communications head, Themba Maseko, said. "The president has expressed the view that Jake White should stay but cabinet's view is that it's an SA Rugby matter. Obviously they [SA Rugby] don't have to take into account the views of the majority of South Africans, which in my view is Mr White should stay.

"Efforts to make future teams representative will continue but what is primary in the minds of most South Africans is to celebrate this victory. White put together a winning team that made all South Africans proud. That should be the focus of our attention at this stage."

Mbeki will hold a formal reception for the Springbok team at the Union Buildings in Pretoria today.

Alan Jones, who earns £2m a year as a presenter on Sydney's most popular radio program, has joined the race to succeed John Connolly as Australia's head coach, nearly 20 years after he resigned from the position. Jones coached the Wallabies for four years from 1984. The Queensland Rugby Union chairman, Peter Lewis, put forward the 66-year-old's name this week.

Jones said he would dump modern coaching methods, which in his view are the product of overblown management teams, and use as assistants the former Wales coach Alex Evans, currently Australia's set-piece expert and another 66-year-old, and two players who appeared in the 1980s, Mark Ella and Simon Poidevin.

The former England head coach Sir Clive Woodward, who was linked with the Australia job earlier this week, was yesterday appointed a director of Leicester. He will be joined by another former Tigers player, Rory Underwood.

Newcastle will consider playing Mathew Tait at full-back following the knee ligament injury suffered by Matthew Burke that has ended the Australian's season. Tait was one of England's World Cup stand-outs in the center but many believe he is the man to succeed Jason Robinson in the national No15 jersey.