Rugby Union: Woodward and Andrew in Race to Be Elite Director

The appointment of Twickenham's first elite director of rugby is set to be made tomorrow with the two candidates, the former England head coach Sir Clive Woodward and the Newcastle director of rugby Rob Andrew, still running neck and neck.

The four-man Rugby Football Union panel charged with making the appointment has yet to schedule a final meeting but it is likely to be tomorrow with one of its members, the governing body's chief executive Francis Baron, due to resume his holiday that evening.

The process has been held up for the last two days while various items of paperwork are sorted out. Both candidates' legal and financial advisers have been in negotiations with the RFU about the elite director's contract and allowances, while a compensation deal still has to be agreed with Newcastle should Andrew be offered the job.

With two members of the panel, Baron and the union's management board chairman Martyn Thomas, still to decide which candidate to back - the other two, Bill Beaumont and John Spencer, are divided with the former favouring Woodward and the latter Andrew - hours of debate are likely. Once the appointment is made an RFU remuneration committee will meet to set the salary for what is a new job. Both Woodward and Andrew have stressed their intention to focus on the development of players from the Under-16 level upwards and not preoccupy themselves with the high-profile element of the position, superintending the management of the senior England side.

"We are determined to have everything sorted out by the end of the week," said a Twickenham source yesterday. "There are certain things we cannot rush, such as the fine details of the contract, and ideally a decision will be made by Thursday night."

Baron and Thomas will spend much of today locked in discussions with their Premier Rugby counterparts, Mark McCafferty and Tom Walkinshaw, in their first meeting since the clubs lost a high court action to withhold players from England's November international against New Zealand at Twickenham. With the new season little more than two weeks away, only six of the 16 training days for the England head coach Andy Robinson have been agreed and his request for players to be rested the week before the start of the Six Nations has been refused.

It is against the backdrop of regular club-country disputes that the elite director will start work, one year before the World Cup, and, while Woodward has seen it all before, for Andrew it would mean looking at the problem from the other side of the fence.