Peter Jackson: Cheika can follow Kitch Christie’s short cut to glory

Before taking charge of the Springboks, Kitch Christie made a bold prediction: “Six months is long enough for a coach to win the World Cup.”

Back then, in late autumn 1994 with his country hosting the tournament the following May, experts the globe over castigated South Africa for giving the new man an impossible mission with next to no time to achieve it.

A humble graduate of a school far removed from Jose Mourinho’s bombastic academy, Christie never doubted from that first match in Scotland that he had been given enough time. Neither did he ever doubt the players at his disposal, nor his ability to bring the best out of them.