White and Page walk out of Selborne College rugby programme
Jake White and director of rugby Derek Page have both stepped away from their roles at Selborne College in East London, with White submitting a formal letter of complaint to the Selborne College Foundation Trust detailing the reasons for his departure.
The pair were brought in at the start of the season to arrest a sustained decline in the school's rugby programme. White operated as a consultant across the junior and senior structures, while Page was appointed to oversee the broader programme. Both were given assurances of institutional backing before joining.
According to White's letter, those assurances did not materialise. He accuses headmaster Andrew Dewar of poor communication, a lack of accountability, excessive control over rugby matters, and prioritising hockey above rugby. Page submitted a similar letter weeks earlier and has yet to receive a response.
Page, himself an Old Boy of the school, confirmed the departures to Rugby365 and backed every claim in White's letter. He says the headmaster blocked them from appointing their own coaches, restricted efforts to expand the fixture list for junior teams, and refused to implement a bursary system aimed at retaining talent from Selborne Primary.
"What's the point of bringing in a director of rugby whose hands are tied behind his back?" Page said. "When we came in, we wanted to bring in coaches and improve the players' skill level, but we were told no. Under no circumstances. Instead, the headmaster chooses the coaches himself."
Page also alleges he has been made a scapegoat for the first side's poor results on the field. Selborne have had a difficult season to date, losing 17-57 to Rondebosch Boys' High at the Pretoria Boys High 125th festival, going down 15-24 to Framesby, and suffering a heavy 5-22 defeat to Pearson High School in Gqeberha last weekend. A draw against Stirling High School — a fixture Selborne would traditionally expect to win comfortably — compounded a troubling run of form.
"It's like having a pot plant in your house, and then you stop giving it water and sunlight — it's going to stop growing," Page said. "That's exactly how rugby has been at Selborne. There has been no moving with the times."
Selborne currently have no director of rugby, and neither White nor Page has been involved with the school's structures for over a month.