Jake White says never say never regarding the Wallabies positions © Getty Images

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Jake White still harbours hope of coaching the Wallabies despite being overlooked in favour of Ewen McKenzie last year.

"I just wouldn't send my CV in again," White said on Thursday. "I'd have to get tapped on the shoulder this time."

South Africa's 2007 Rugby World Cup-winning coach is back in Australia for the first time since walking out on the Brumbies last September, midway through a four-year coaching contract with the Canberra-based Super Rugby franchise. And seven months on, he made no secret that losing out to McKenzie still hurt - especially after believing he had the job as Robbie Deans' successor in the bag.

"I'm the first to admit when I arrived here under John O'Neill as the incumbent [Australian Rugby Union] CEO, the landscape was different," he said. There were opportunities in Australia for foreign coaches to ply their trade and coach internationally - Mickey Arthur at cricket, Robbie Deans at rugby.

"That landscape changed in the two years that I was here - no-one's fault - and that means that you've got to reboot and rethink about where you want to be as a coach.

"I've thought about it long and hard. I would love the Wallabies job.

"I've said it many times to many journalists while I was here: I'd love to coach internationally again, and the mere fact that it wasn't an opportunity and another opportunity presented itself - rightly or wrongly, selfishly, whichever way you look at it - I just decided it was time for me to be back closer to my family, my network, based on the fact that the landscape had significantly changed.

"I don't blame anybody. It's the way sport works."

Now committed to the Sharks until the end of the 2015 Super Rugby season, White said there was "no chance" he would be coaching at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in Britain. But he retains a strong desire to coach at the highest level again.

"I would like to coach internationally again and I wasn't aware that if I left I could still never coach Australia," he said. "I mean, I'm a young guy and there's a lot more international rugby and anyone who has coached at that level always looks for that opportunity."