White: ‘If that’s my last game, it was a special way to go out’

In fact, the reach of the reluctant hero from Aberdeen has gone further in France, with shop and restaurant owners throughout the 250,000-populated city of Clermont speaking of White in warm, enthusiastic tones. On Saturday, he was one of five players ending their careers with the club and nearly 18,000 people stayed in the stadium after a convincing 57-14 win over relegated Brive to applaud them.

White will make his return to Scotland with wife Beverley and two daughters, with another child on the way, after almost a decade on the road, but in an exclusive interview with The Scotsman he spoke of how he hopes to be able to use his experience in the game to help rugby grow again into a sport more competitive on the world stage.

Like most Scottish internationalists, White has enjoyed a rollercoaster ride of a rugby career, from an early introduction to the sanctimonious nature of the SRU’s desire to punish its own when at 20 he was handed a 16-week ban for his boot supposedly catching the head of a prone Springbok in a midweek tour match, when there was no evidence to prove such, to making his Scotland debut at 21 in a winning Calcutta Cup match and going on to captain his country to victories over the ‘Auld Enemy’ and France, among others.

Just as a host of Scots led by Gary Armstrong helped to create a Tyneside revolution in rugby 15 years ago so White was part of a similar drive in Manchester steered by Sale owner Brian Kennedy and featuring Scots Scotland skipper Bryan Redpath and full-back Rowen Shepherd. White agrees with the sentiment that it was the making of him, and yet reveals that had the SRU acted quicker he may never have left Scotland .

“That was a great move and I loved it at Sale ,” he recalled. “I joined them before the World Cup in 2003 and did some pre-season training, but joined them properly after the World Cup.

“To be honest, I would have been happy to have stayed in Glasgow but then the SRU were still slow in discussing new contracts so I didn’t have anything on the table from them and had to look elsewhere.

“Around the turn of the year if they had offered me something to stay I would have stayed, but there was no contract offer at that point. It came through later in the season but I’d already made my mind up to join Sale and be part of what Brian Kennedy was creating there.

“It was a great chance for me to go and prove myself was how I viewed it, and it was a great move. There were great people in Manchester , and we had some great players coming in. Andrew Sheridan came at the same time, Sebastien Chabal, Graeme Bond, Jason Robinson, Mark Cueto, Charlie Hodgson, Chris Jones and Basil [Redpath] of course… we had an awesome team.

“We won the European Shield in 2005, the Premiership in 2006, beating Leicester in the final 45-20, so gave them a good going-over. Those were great times.”

White’s career then was on an incredible upwards trajectory. He admits to being disappointed when left out of the British and Irish Lions squad in 2005, but was called up towards the end and wore the famous red jersey against Auckland , but in 2006 his star was at its highest.

“The biggest thing I took from the Lions tour that was the confidence that us Scottish guys were just as good as everyone else that was out there, and everything just came together the season after that. Frank [Hadden] made me Scotland captain and we beat France on my 50th cap to start the Six Nations well. We backed up by beating England and could have beaten Wales away, the game where big Scott [ Murray ] was sent off, and we were close against Ireland as well and beat Italy .

“I went on to win the Premiership with Sale , I was voted the ‘Players Player of the Year’ in England , and won the Scottish and the British Rugby Writers Club’s ‘Player of the Year’ awards.”

He then suffered a career-threatening injury, rupturing his cruciate ligaments in an awkward turn against Romania at Murrayfield at the end of 2006. He returned as Scotland ’s skipper for the 2007 World Cup, but was still short of full match fitness and form, and sitting out when back at high-flying Sale was not an option. As ever a return from such a serious injury is a long and torturous process, but White did recover and in 2008-9 was approached by Clermont Auvergne as they sought the extra bit of quality that could take them from regular challengers to French Championship winners for the first time in their history.

White’s famous bone-jarring tackles and terrific work ethic helped to stiffen the Clermont spine, and though he suffered another serious injury in his first season at Clermont it was not before he played his part in laying foundations for the club’s long-awaited first French title.

Last season, they just missed out again, but have secured their place in the semi-finals this year and have high hopes of repeating the title trick before their big friendly Scot departs. He will go with some incredible highlights from 14 years in the pro game, but what is of interest in his native Scotland now is what a player with White’s unique insight and experiences might bring back.

One aspect is confidence, a belief that Scottish teams can compete on the European stage and build on the achievements of Glasgow and Edinburgh this season. Another is a desire to see more young Scots take the route he did from a non rugby-playing school such as Cults Academy and then Aberdeen Wanderers to the top of the world game.

“Essentially, success in rugby, perhaps in football too, comes down to the quality of player and player base. Our player pool with two teams is limited. The one thing you can never fault with Scottish teams is the work ethic, the commitment or passion, but the structure we’re in and the size of the country, means, well, we are where we are.

“It has been great this year to see Edinburgh ’s Heineken Cup form, which ahs been outstanding, and Glasgow ’s league form is also great for the future.

“I clearly remember the early days of pro rugby in Scotland , in buses heading to Wales , as if they were yesterday. I have kept in touch and watched it develop and struggle, and I have now seen how successful clubs in England and France do it.

“ It’s about every country finding what’s right for them and we need to find a model in Scotland for how we bring more kids through the game in school, how we get more playing rugby in the clubs and then how that transfers to the professional game.”

There have been a number of Aberdonians to have followed the path trod nearly a century ago by the late Donnie Innes, with Moray Low, Chris Cusiter and Ruaridh Jackson the latest caps to emerge from the north-east. Intriguingly, like Jackson, White’s family hail from Melrose and explains why his father Phillip and mother Anne were eager to push a rugby ball into his hands and, as they drove him regularly to the central belt for Scotland age-grade sessions, loved the fact that their son’s name - Jason Phillip Randall White – brought the initials ‘JPR’.

They felt a great delight and sadness watching him take his leave of the game in France at the Stade Marcel Michelin on Saturday, alongside his sister and a small army of friends from Scotland brought across by the Xodus Group, for whom he has been an ambassador. They all revelled in the terrific colour and excitement of rugby in Clermont.

But they also share his passion for the game in Scotland and remain hopeful that the example provided by their son could inspire more youngsters from across Scotland to take up the challenge of reaching the pinnacle in rugby.

White added: “It’s hard now to think of a life beyond rugby, but I will take time and look at what my options are.

“I would love to be involved in the Scottish game in some capacity, and to try to give back something of what I have been given by the game, but there are various options to weigh up.

“I have been involved with the Xodus Group, a big oil firm, since the World Cup in 2007 and things have just ballooned. They are a really forward-thinking company and there’s an opportunity to get involved in the business side of things with them. So I have to make a decision whether I stay in rugby or go down the business route there.

“I will take time to reflect. It has been a full-on life, a rugby career that has gone by so quickly, with big challenge followed by big challenge, big game after big game, and then you’re where we are now coming through to the end, semi-finals and hopefully another final, in France.

“The weekend was very special and while I hope to be involved in the semi-final, it will be in Toulouse, and they make a big thing here about your last game in front of ‘your public’. That was amazing really, to be on the pitch, having the opportunity thank the supporters and the club publicly, the stadium full of 18,000 people chanting your name and some people I’ve known a long time in there too. If this proves to be my last game, then it was a special way to finish my rugby career.”