Pain of 2011 to motivate the Brumbies
World Cup-winning coach Jake White has urged his battle-scarred Brumbies to bottle the pain of 2011 and use it as motivation to revive the Super Rugby glory days in Canberra.
White presided over his first training session on Friday and immediately instructed the survivors from this year's wreckage never to forget how shattering it felt to finish third-last in the competition.
"What do we take out of this year? There's nothing much we can take out of it other than the fact that it wasn't a successful year and that they didn't enjoy it," the no-nonsense South African said.
"The only thing you've got to remember is what it felt like every Saturday when you sat in the change room.
"If we make sure we never get that feeling back again, we're moving forward.
"I don't want to labour too much on what happened this year because it's irrelevant. It's a massive change in personnel and obviously there's going to be a massive change in the way we play."
With some 13 players having moved on, including Wallabies stalwarts Matt Giteau, Adam Ashley-Cooper and Mark Chisholm, only three members of Australia's current 40-man squad remain on the Brumbies' books - Pat McCabe, Stephen Moore and Ben Alexander.
"These are exciting times," said White, who guided the Springboks to the 2007 Rugby World Cup before taking a coaching sabbatical.
"It's a new clean sheet, it's a blank canvas for us. A new conditioning staff, new coaching staff, a lot of new playing personnel.
"It's a nice way to create a new culture."
With so many personnel changes, White believes the great unknown may prove one of the Brumbies' key assets in 2012.
"What's nice about us is that no-one knows what's coming next year," he said.
"No-one knows how we're going to play, no-one knows who will be playing and no-one knows what our starting team's like.
"That's a wonderful situation to be in as a new coach."
Despite the sweeping changes at the two-time Super championship winners, White is confident the Brumbies can be competitive in the first of his four seasons at the helm.
"I remember when George Gregan and all of those players came from Randwick in the first campaign (in 1996). There was no international experience then," he said.
"They came down as renegades, basically leftovers from Sydney and Queensland and no-one really wanted them and they ended up becoming the best franchise in the competition the next year.
"Ideally, I would have loved all the seasoned campaigners and Test players to be here, but that's the hand I've been dealt."
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