Speaking to the SuperSport website, White said the Australian and New Zealand coaches know that the IRB directives would be to the advantage of the South African teams.

"My task is to warn the [South African] coaches on what I think the overseas teams, particularly the Australians, are going to do to get around the directives that have been issued with regard to the scrums and driving off the line-out," White told SuperSport.

"I was at the SANZAR conference where it was discussed, and you could see that Eddie Jones [coaching the Reds this year] and John Mitchell [Western Force] were very concerned about it. They were already talking among themselves on how they were going to combat it.

"What I want to do is to ensure that our coaches and teams are ready for whatever counter the Aussies will come up with to get around the situation and to negate any disadvantage they may feel they are under. It would be naïve for us not to anticipate some sort of ploy on the Aussie part to prevent the scrums from being a fair contest.

"I have been giving quite a lot of thought to it, and I feel I can help the coaches be better prepared for what the opposition might throw at them.

"What we don't want is a situation where after four weeks suddenly everyone cottons onto the fact that the Aussies are sacking every line-out in an attempt to prevent the drive. Let’s be ready for what they might do, let’s not wait until the competition is halfway over before working on a way to combat what the foreign teams are doing."

White has just completed a tour of the country this week, in which he met with the coaching staff of all five South African franchises.

At his side on his travels has been SA Rugby referees manager Andre Watson and former international referee Tappe Henning, who have helped him outline to the Super 14 coaches what they can expect from both the referees and the opposition during the competition.

"There have been no big law changes, but there have been directives that have been issued and we must also not forget that this is a World Cup year. That means that the referees are going to be under as much pressure to earn themselves selection to the World Cup as the players will be," White told the website.

"They are going to be watching particular aspects of play very closely as they would have been issued with directives from the IRB to do so. Tappe and Andre are here to help the coaches with technical aspects that could become problematic during the competition."