My Life in Rugby: Craig White – former Lions performance coach

The three years I spent at Wasps, between 2002 and 2005, was an incredible period in my career. Warren Gatland and I had already built up a rapport from our time together with Ireland and he tempted me back into rugby after a spell in football under Sam Allardyce at Bolton Wanderers.
Within the space of a couple of months of me arriving at Wasps the club went from having one conditioning coach to seven – four full-time and three interns from Bath University, all of whom have gone on to enjoy successful careers in their own right.
Having so many staff meant there was no hiding place for players and they had no choice but to train hard. We created an environment where players felt valued and very soon they began to see the results of their labours. There were none of the old wives’ tales being bandied around – such as you can’t do leg weights two days before a game – that I’d come across in the transition period from amateurism to professionalism.
It helped that senior players like Lawrence Dallaglio bought into the ‘Wigan way’. Myself, Shaun Edwards and my assistants, Paul Stridgeon and Matt Bitcon all came from St John Fisher School in Wigan. Lawrence seemed to love our work hard, play hard ethos and the banter that we enjoyed. Rob Howley couldn’t believe the sheer attention to detail when he joined from Cardiff Blues.
It was no coincidence that we took to the play-off format better than anyone when it was introduced for the 2002/03 season. Shaun had experienced play-offs in Rugby League and reassured everyone that peaking then, at the end of the season, was all that mattered. Our training was all about intensity not volume. We mapped out the whole year for the players so they knew exactly when they had blocks of time off. Other clubs thought we weren’t working as hard as them but we were actually working harder.
Much of my career has been spent working alongside Warren. He is a very knowledgeable and astute coach who takes risks often in order to break through perceived boundaries, although you wouldn’t think it as he holds himself together very calmly and is super laid-back. To counter-balance this, he likes to surround himself with ‘energisers’ – people with infectious personalities, and they don’t come any more infectious than Shaun Edwards!
In 2005, we both moved on. Warren took up a coaching post with Waikato while I went on tour to New Zealand with the Lions. If Wasps was one of the best periods of my career that Lions tour was definitely the worst. I respected Clive Woodward for taking a risk and going with two squads but the writing was on the wall with that tour anyway due to a mismatch between tired UK players and fresh All Blacks. Lions tours are known for the bonds and friendships that you make but sadly this wasn’t the case in ‘05 when jealousies and rivalries between the two groups caused friction.
Luckily I got to go on the next tour to South Africa in 2009 and that was a much better experience. What Geech and Warren did in 2009 was bring it right back to the old-school values and, had it not been for a Ronan O’Gara bomb, we’d have ended up winning the series.
Post-tour I went travelling with my wife and I was all set to hook up with Warren again at Waikato when I found out my dad had cancer. I returned to the UK to help look after him and for the next year and a half I worked at Leicester. Some of the senior lads there were concerned at the lack of running we did thinking it would come back to bite us at the end of the season but we very nearly ended up winning the treble, only missing out after losing to Wasps in the Heineken Cup final at Twickenham.
When my father passed away I went travelling again, to Australia, where I agreed to join the Wallabies but that fell through because my wife didn’t want to live there. So it was on to Wales instead. Even though I was still quite young at the time I’d gathered a lot of experience.
After starting off at Waterloo, under Tony Russ, within 15 years I’d worked with two of Europe’s top clubs and coached Ireland and toured with the Lions twice. I found the Wales job wasn’t challenging me as much as I’d hoped so I left after three years and took up a consultancy role with World Rugby.
My first role with Namibia, pre-Rugby World Cup 2011, was a bit of an eye-opener. The setup there was very unprofessional and nothing like they have in place now under Phil Davies. I was supposed to be there for two months but only managed six weeks.
Nevertheless, my involvement with Tier 2 countries continued and over the last few years I’ve worked with Russia, Romania, Georgia, Namibia again, the USA and Canada. For the last World Cup, I was responsible for planning the Georgian pathway two years out from the tournament and assisted Uruguay in their preparations in the immediate build-up.
My main remit now is working with Georgia and recently myself and Milton Haig (Lelos head coach) sat down together to work out a four-year plan to take us up to the next World Cup and beyond.