Rugby: Woodward's Halo is Fading

Coaching England can be a bitch of a job even if your PA is the soul of discretion. Apparently there is no truth in the rumour that Faria Alam has emailed her CV to Sir Clive Woodward - "I have some expertise in handling powerful men . . ." - but hiring the Football Association's nemesis might not be a bad move. There is nothing like a femme fatale in the next-door office to distract attention from your own problematic in-tray.

Because, for once, the looming rugby union season finds Woodward looking to restore his reputation as a sporting alchemist. Maybe that explains his presence alongside the Southampton chairman Rupert Lowe at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, persuading even Gary Lineker to link him with an imminent future in football management.

Either way, if England lose their autumn Tests at Twickenham Woodward may find even his national football and cricket counterparts Sven-Goran Eriksson and Duncan Fletcher overtaking him in the popularity stakes. Eriksson has not had an easy summer, granted, but the World Cup qualifiers may boost his professional credentials and his players still rate him. Everyone else wants to have a drink with their clever new mate Fletcher, the quiet animator behind England's cricketing rejuvenation. For Sir Woody, however, the World Cup sequel is proving infinitely trickier to direct than the classic original.

It is not simply a case of refreshing England's tactics after their dire summer tour of New Zealand and Australia where they lost heavily in all three Tests and conceded 14 tries to two. Neither is it primarily about picking up the physical pieces of still-injured squad members. Instead, if the stage whispers coming from the clubs are correct, the England management must recapture their players' hearts and minds before they can hope to recreate the sunlit joys of last autumn.

Prominent names at three Zurich Premiership clubs have told me that a number of England players now feel they are receiving better specialist, nitty-gritty coaching and individual attention at their clubs than at international level. Senior players have apparently given the management a list of improvements they feel need to be made. The idle barbecue banter about English player disenchantment that got Wasps' director of rugby Warren Gatland into trouble over the summer has become a recurring theme. Gatland had a meeting with Andy Robinson as recently as last week at which he pleaded for better communication between the England management and their club counterparts.

All this is relative, of course; England have the World Cup safely tucked away and autumn Tests against Canada, South Africa and Australia are still two months away. No one is suggesting Robinson, Phil Larder and Woodward have become bad coaches overnight, nor that England have become complacent. But is it just possible Woodward's modus operandi is being overtaken not only abroad but at home as well? Are his players growing weary of listening to voices they first heard, in some cases, seven years ago?

Even two years ago such a notion would have been preposterous. Given Woodward is about to publish a book entitled 'Winning!', which celebrates his management philosophies, neither is this the ideal time for such conjecture. The tome, by the way, is full of anecdotes about the lengths to which he has gone to give England an edge, including taking a ride in an Israeli army jet over the Golan Heights with a specialist in sight-testing. Eriksson's penchant for dishwasher-loading before sex rather suffers by comparison, doesn't it?

But, increasingly, the most successful coach in English rugby history seems to be being hoist by his own Nike-sponsored, much-admired petard. By issuing his players with laptops, putting them in control of on-field decision-making and turning every one of them into diet-obsessed fitness fiends, Woodward unwittingly created a bunch of potential Frankensteins who increasingly believe they know as much about the world of elite performance as he does. The management have always sought players with good rugby brains; maybe it was only a matter of time before the squad got their heads together and queried the chemistry of Team England.

Woodward himself must be starting to feel a little like Sir Richard Branson whenever the latter boards a Virgin train. As a "big picture" man, he is a believer in delegating to loyal specialists whose input keeps the chariot rolling but, of late, the conveyor belt has seized up. Will Greenwood suggests England's spluttering backline simply needs a squirt of WD40, yet rarely in international sport are flaws eradicated quite so easily.

To complicate life further, two-thirds of Premiership sides also possess a shrewd, no-nonsense, non-English director of rugby or coach; if things get bumpy this autumn, not all of them will be shedding patriotic tears of sorrow on Woodward's behalf. Neither will South Africa's Jake White nor Australia's Eddie Jones when their teams visit Twickenham. And to cap it all, what about Woodward's Lions tour to New Zealand next summer?

You could pick a decent Lions Test XV containing up to a dozen Celts, as follows: Murphy; S Williams, O'Driscoll, D'Arcy, Robinson; Wilkinson, Cooper; Smith, Bulloch, Vickery, O'Connell, O'Callaghan, Easterby, O'Connor, Taylor. If the head coach picks a whole load of Englishmen and the series is lost, he really will cop some stick. If, conversely, he declines to pick his World Cup heroes and the Lions lose, things could get even nastier. As Paula Radcliffe now knows, there are some fickle people out there.