White and Page walk away from Selborne rugby rebuild
Jake White and director of rugby Derek Page have both stepped away from their roles at Selborne College in East London after falling out with headmaster Andrew Dewar, Rugby365 has revealed.
The pair were brought in at the start of the season to reverse what has been described as several years of decline in the school's rugby programme. White came on board as a consultant across the junior and senior sides, while Page was appointed to oversee the broader programme. Both say they were given assurances of institutional backing before taking the roles — assurances they say were not honoured.
White has since written to the Selborne College Foundation Trust detailing his grievances. In the letter, he accuses Dewar of poor communication, a lack of accountability, excessive control over rugby matters, and a failure to commit to meaningful change. Among his specific complaints is that the headmaster prioritised hockey over the rugby programme and actively slowed progress.
Page, an Old Boy of the school, wrote a similar letter weeks earlier and says he has yet to receive a response.
"I can confirm that both Jake and I stepped back from our positions at the school," Page told Rugby365. "We were trying to bring about change, make the place better, and uplift the rugby programme, but the headmaster kept rolling speed bumps on the way."
Page says that in practice, his role as director of rugby was rendered meaningless. He and White were blocked from appointing coaches — a function Dewar reportedly retained for himself — prevented from increasing the fixture list for junior sides, and denied the ability to implement a bursary system to retain talent from Selborne Primary School.
"What's the point of bringing in a director of rugby whose hands are tied behind his back?" Page said.
Selborne currently has no director of rugby, and neither White nor Page has been involved with the school's structures for over a month.
The fallout is reflected on the field. The first side has drawn with Stirling High School — a fixture Selborne would historically win comfortably — and were beaten 15-24 by Framesby. More damaging were back-to-back heavy defeats: 17-57 against Rondebosch Boys' High at the Pretoria Boys High 125th festival, and 5-22 against Pearson High School in Gqeberha last weekend.
Page believes he has been positioned as a convenient scapegoat for the programme's struggles. "It looks like they brought me in as someone to blame," he said, adding that Selborne has fallen well behind the investment being made by rival Eastern Cape schools and programmes nationally.
"They have missed the boat, they have missed the party. 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. That's exactly how rugby has been at Selborne."