Woodward in Frame for England Return

It is not entirely clear when the ball started rolling, but rolling it most certainly is now. What began as a rumour is fast becoming a movement, a crusade: the return of Sir Clive Woodward to England rugby.

Perhaps it began when Martyn Thomas, chairman of the Rugby Football Union management board, phoned him just to have a chat about how it was that all the things Woodward had said would go wrong - and it was a fairly acerbic forewarning in 2004 - were doing precisely that. England, as has just been revealed in the Six Nations, are struggling on the field. Relations between the clubs and the RFU remain strained despite the governing body's recent climb-down over payments due from the Lions tour last summer.

But that chat was months ago. As was the dinner they had together in Cardiff to put a few hypothetical bones on the purely theoretical plan to put things right. They might have discussed how it was, since the departure of Fran Cotton last spring from the management board, that England had lost a big-hitter, a businessman with rugby interests at heart, who could drive through reform and development with a minimum of interference.

How it was, since the departure of Woodward in the summer of 2004, that a similar big-hitter had been lost at ground level, where Test rugby is played. In the place of these heavyweights, the regime left to run the elite end of English rugby - from head coach Andy Robinson and his assistants, through Chris Spice as performance director, all the way up to chief executive Francis Baron - had been characterised by hesitation and caution.

What was discussed then is fast becoming a blueprint for emergency surgery in time for the World Cup in the early autumn of 2007 in France. Will Greenwood, one of Woodward's key players during the two Woodward World Cup eras - the leaden of 1999 and the golden of 2003 - wrote in yesterday's Daily Telegraph that the RFU had been talking to Woodward for months.

Our own sources reveal that Woodward would never come back as coach but would, if he returned, be given complete managerial authority over England's representative teams of all ages, including the national team. Part of the brief would also include parlaying with the clubs, brokering a lasting peace deal, especially on the thorny issue of player release for national service. In his parting shots in 2004, Woodward's most acerbic lines were reserved for the clubs who, he said, were jeopardising England's chances of ever winning the World Cup again.

'I went into the same meetings with the same faces and heard the same things,' he said. 'We have gone backwards from what we had. The priority is getting control of your players. You can't control them through directors of rugby. How are you supposed to do your job through 12 directors of rugby, three-quarters of whom aren't English and the others probably want your job anyway? It's like trying to run a business without a workforce.' It is our understanding that Woodward regrets those remarks and would dearly love to campaign for peace.

Should he return, Woodward, as ever, would scour the land for the best of the best. On the coaching front, this would inevitably include Brian Ashton, the architect of so much of England's constructive play in the build-up to Australia in 2003, but who left before the World Cup campaign began.

Ashton, in yesterday's Guardian, said that he had 'unfinished business' with England. The prospect of bringing Ashton back with him might put a coating of honey on the Woodward ticket. This might be essential. There are those at Twickenham who were also stung by Woodward's farewell - words of good riddance, they might feel - and who will warn against his going back. And there are those in the clubs who will remember that 2004 was as bitter as 2003 was sweet.

There is work to do before the rolling movement becomes a concrete reality. But the RFU have already built a breathing space into proceedings by announcing that the review of England's Six Nations performance will not be completed until the end of April. That gives England time to decide what to do with Robinson, or with Phil Larder, his defence coach, and Joe Lydon, his attack. Or with all of them. It seems pretty certain that Chris Spice will go.

It is not so certain how much time Woodward would need to extricate himself from his current position as director of football at Southampton. But his football career may be dribbling to an end by means beyond his control. A takeover at St Mary's seems inevitable.

Meanwhile, the RFU, through Martyn Thomas and Francis Baron are making all the right noises about their man: what they have not done and to whom they have not spoken. But the denial of a return to rugby for Sir Clive Woodward should be viewed with suspicion.