White Gold

by Peter Burns

  ‘Inside my head,’ said Dallaglio, ‘a voice said, “Bottle this feeling, mate, and I guarantee it will help you in the future.” The changing room was like a morgue – complete silence. Guys sat in stunned bewilderment. How did we lose that? We had blown it and we knew it. If you looked around, some guys were quietly shedding tears. What hurt most was that we had contrived to lose a match when we were the better team. I blamed myself for the decision not to kick for goal. Over the following years we would learn how to build a winning score, brick by brick.’

  ‘I cannot imagine a worse memory of that,’ wrote Matt Dawson in Nine Lives. ‘The combination of it being my first Grand Slam game and its being played at Wembley Stadium, a mecca for every Englishman. It had been such an inspiring place to be... Later that evening the England squad went back to the Petersham Hotel in Richmond for dinner and a few drinks. Clive stood up and said, “I believe good things come out of bad days. In time, this will do us the world of good.”’

  *

  As part of their World Cup preparations, England were travelling to Australia for a training camp and a one-off Test against the Wallabies. But before they left, a storm erupted that would shift the focus firmly away from the playing side of English rugby.

  At the beginning of the year, 1999 seemed to promise everything to Lawrence Dallaglio. He was captain of England, the team had just recorded a famous win against South Africa, they were favourites for the Five Nations, his partner Alice was due to have their second child, England were to tour Australia with a full-strength team in the summer and then in the autumn there was the World Cup, where a large proportion of England’s games would be played at home. To top matters off, he was now something of a celebrity – the name Dallaglio carried serious commercial weight and there appeared to be all manner of sponsors keen to sign him up for endorsement deals. But this, it would prove, was the pride before the fall.

  It was late May when Dallaglio was told by his agent that Gillette wanted to pay him £500,000 to front a new campaign, but that they wanted three of their executives, Peter Simmons, James Tunstall and Louise Wood, to meet him in person to discuss the terms of the contract. He met them twice and over the course of the meetings they plied him with drinks and encouraged him to tell as many lurid stories as he knew about the off-field life and antics of elite rugby players. Thrilled by the lucrative offer that was on the table and keen to impress them in any way he could, Dallaglio talked and talked and talked. He spun long tales of his misspent youth and under the beam of their grinning faces and the glugging sound of endlessly flowing alcohol, his tales grew increasingly exaggerated and outrageous.

  ‘During my childhood in Barnes, I’d hung out with guys who knew a lot about gangs and the recreational drug scene,’ revealed Dallaglio in It’s in the Blood, ‘and as the chat shifted in that direction, James and Louise gave the impression they found this stuff fascinating. So I took what I knew, exaggerated it, put myself into various stories I’d heard and tried to be the guy they wanted me to be. When it comes to bravado, I can give it with the best of them.’

  On Sunday, 23 May the News of the World published a Dallaglio exposé, revealing the three Gillette executives to have been nothing more than undercover journalists.

  ‘When it was revealed that Peter Simmons, James Tunstall and Louise Wood were all working for the News of the World and that every conversation had been taped, I felt sick,’ he said. ‘And it all made a different kind of sense... They set the trap and I didn’t so much get caught as throw myself headlong into it.’

  Dallaglio called Woodward, desperate to explain that it was all a terrible mistake, that the stories that were now being read at breakfast tables all around the country were nothing but tall tales told under the influence of too much booze. He made the call in hope rather than expectation – why would Woodward believe him? This was surely the end of his international career; perhaps even the end of his time as a professional rugby player.

  ‘You’ve been a bit of a prat, haven’t you?’ said Woodward, having been forewarned of the story when the News of the World’s editor, Piers Morgan, phoned him for a comment the night before the story broke. Woodward had refused to comment and then spent several hours desperately trying to get hold of his captain. When Dallaglio explained what had happened with the sting, Woodward didn’t think twice. ‘Pack up everything, bring Alice and the kids and come and stay with us.’

  Woodward opened his home as a refuge to Dallaglio and offered him as much support as he could. He called other senior team members, explained the situation, and the team as a whole closed ranks around Dallaglio. It was an incredible moment of unity.

  Two days after the publication of the story, the RFU held a press conference at Twickenham and Dallaglio admitted his stupidity before publicly resigning as England captain. There was little else that he could do – and the captaincy passed to Martin Johnson.

  ‘In the weeks that followed the publication of the stories, my concern wasn’t so much the newspapers but the Rugby Football Union, who felt they had to investigate the allegations,’ said Dallaglio. ‘After an initial gathering of evidence, they decided to charge me formally with bringing the game into disrepute.’ If there was one element of the affair that he most resented, it was the RFU’s decision to allow the media to attend the internal disciplinary hearing that followed publication of the story, which, to Dallaglio, gave it the feeling of a show trial. ‘It gave it a legitimacy it didn’t merit, but it was the RFU’s desire to be seen to do the right thing,’ he told David Hands of The Times in a 2012 interview on the affair.

  But the RFU were also desperate to make sure that Dallaglio was available for the World Cup. They backdated his suspension so that its duration affected only the tour to Australia and he was available for selection for the first World Cup warm-up game in August.

  ‘When the team departed for Australia with Martin as the new captain, the disappointment for me was simply not being able to travel with the team. When you are all in that group, each contributing in his own way, it doesn’t matter that much who is or isn’t captain. Martin knew that, when I was back in the team, I would give him the same 100 per cent support he had given me. It wasn’t complicated – what mattered was being part of the team; the rest was peripheral. Martin was the new captain, he had my support.’

  Dallaglio appreciated above all the way that Woodward had stuck by him and drawn the wagons around him within the team. It showed not only the regard he was held in by his coach and his peers, but also the loyalty of the group. While Woodward could be ruthless with team selection, cutting players that he felt were dead wood from the international scene altogether, he was also steadfast in his support for players within his inner circle. Such loyalty would form the bedrock for the team moving forward.

  ‘I could complain about the methods of the newspaper,’ said Dallaglio, ‘be annoyed about the RFU turning the hearing into a media circus, but the reality is that the hearing brought me down a peg or two – well several, actually. I needed to focus on the things that mattered: those close to me and my rugby. But I was a pretty angry man; angry with the newspaper, angry with the RFU, angry with myself. But if you can channel anger correctly, it can be a help. I was determined to play the best rugby of my life.’

  *

  Before the summer tour to Australia, Woodward took Wilkinson to one side and told him that he was considering moving him back to stand-off. But having watched him playing for Newcastle over the preceding weeks, he was concerned that Wilkinson was running the ball too much.

  ‘I need you to think more carefully about your kicking game,’ he said. ‘It’s one of the most important weapons in a stand-off’s armoury. We need to be able to control territory around the field – which means you need to control territory around the field. Can you do that?’

  Wilkinson nodded. He would do anything for the team. And he felt comfortable that he had the skills that Woodward was looking for.

  ‘Good,’ said Woodward
. ‘And if you’re going to be leading the side at stand-off, I need you to start leading things more in meetings. I want you to start making presentations about our tactics and game management. It won’t be rocket science, just reaffirming the tactics that we will all be coming up with and making sure that everyone understands them.’ This time Woodward didn’t leave his statement hanging as a question. This is what he required from his stand-off and if Wilkinson wanted that No.10 shirt, this was what he had to do.

  Wilkinson’s stomach felt leaden. He swallowed. And nodded.

  Almost exactly a year on from the Brisbane drubbing on the Tour of Hell, England took to the field in Sydney to play Australia. It was the one hundredth Test match between the two countries. The Wallabies were largely the same team, with a core of world-class excellence. England, on the other hand, were quite a different force to the one that had last played Down Under. Wilkinson was again at stand-off, but he had the cool presence of Jeremy Guscott and Mike Catt alongside him in the centre, Matt Perry at full-back and warriors in the forwards in the shape of Jason Leonard, Martin Johnson, Tim Rodber, Richard Hill and Martin Corry, while the bench was packed with experience in Matt Dawson, Ben Clarke, Victor Ubogu and Phil de Glanville. While England once again faltered, the performance was startlingly different to Brisbane in 1998 and they fought all the way before succumbing 22–15.

  ‘It was a big game in the lead up to the World Cup and we’d proved we could compete,’ reflected Woodward. ‘But our fitness and performance under pressure let us down in the second half again. During our stay at Couran Cove before the match, Dave Reddin had been working incredibly hard with players on fitness and nutrition, but clearly this is not something that could be done on such a short time span.’

  Reddin had launched his world-class performance concept while at Couran Cove, a training facility on the Queensland coast used previously by the Wallabies. It was a programme that would take several years to come to fruition, but its introduction was the cornerstone for what was to come and, for the majority of the players there, it opened their eyes to what was to be expected of them in terms of physical preparation, diet and the general organisation required to be a world-class athlete.

  While the team were at Couran Cove, Reddin arranged for his colleague, Dr Adam Carey, to hold a seminar on nutrition at Twickenham for the wives and girlfriends of all the players so that they were fully aware of – and able to support – what the conditioning staff wanted the players to be eating.

  It was disappointing to be heading home on the back of a defeat but Australia had been playing on thier own turf and, as they were to prove over the coming months, they were a world-class unit. For England the game proved a good run-out for the players as they began to ramp up their World Cup preparations – but it also kept their feet on the ground.

  After witnessing the collapse against Wales and the close-run loss to the Wallabies, Woodward realised that the one area in which he had yet to prepare the team thoroughly was psychology.

  As part of their preparation for the World Cup, Woodward and Humphrey Walters arranged two training camps with the Royal Marines for forty-eight players, from which he would select the World Cup squad – one ten weeks before the tournament, the other just four and a half weeks out. The sessions were designed to build teamwork, give the players a good physical workout (while not burning them out or risking injury) and to bond them in adversity. It would also teach them the value of learning to think correctly under pressure, and develop their leadership skills and decision-making when placed under physical and mental duress – all aspects that they would have to contend with during a Test match.

  The Marines, like Robert Burns, know that even the very best-laid plans can go wrong and that crucial to success is the ability of their soldiers to adapt to any situation presented to them. They call it ‘dislocated expectations’. The course designed for the England team set out to test their capacity to adapt, lead and perform under extreme pressure.

  ‘For rugby teams, the training sessions that military personnel put themselves through are a good test of how strong the team is as a unit and how confident and communicative the individuals are,’ wrote Jason Leonard in his autobiography. ‘There may not be much similarity on the surface between the Marines and the England rugby team, but the reality is that within every good team there are core values which are the same whether you’re fighting a war or playing a match – for example: trust, determination and communication... As we completed tasks we were observed by assessors who specialise in analysing how people cope under pressure. They were looking to see who the team players were, who were not great team players, who was willing to listen and who was willing to give advice. In life it’s no different to rugby – there are some people who are open to new ideas and responsive to instruction, whilst there are others who will not listen to what they’re being told, acknowledge blame or seek to improve. Under the pressure of an alien environment and in potentially life-threatening situations, these characteristics come to the fore very easily.’

  Perhaps most importantly, however, the team learnt about the ‘jumping out of a helicopter’ test. Would the players look at each of their teammates and be prepared to jump out of a helicopter behind enemy lines with them – believing in one another enough, trusting in one another enough, not to let themselves down? If they didn’t have that complete trust, if there was a weak link in the chain, should that individual be involved with the England team? These were the individuals that Woodward and Walters were looking to identify and weed out.

  Woodward labelled these weak links another way – as ‘energy sappers’. He analysed the entire squad and identified which players were ‘energisers’ and which ones were ‘energy sappers’ – and looked to cut the dead wood from the tree. He told the squad that he would not accept negativity within the group – that even the odd moan or grumble could instil a poison that could spread quickly through the squad and completely undermine everything they had been working towards.

  ‘Looking back on the list of guys involved at that training camp,’ said Woodward, ‘the most remarkable thing was that over 50 per cent of the guys there were in the World Cup squad of 2003. That shows just how much time and commitment needs to be invested in learning to perform under pressure and developing leadership skills across an entire group. It was the same for the Wallaby sides of 1995 and 1999, the Springboks of 2003 and 2007 and the All Blacks of 2007 and 2011. By 1999 we were nowhere near where we needed to be – as it showed.’

  *

  ‘The build-up to the World Cup tournament was like nothing I have experienced before or since,’ wrote Martin Johnson in his autobiography. ‘Back in England, we continued our training camp, spending the whole of the summer and early autumn together, working hard on our fitness and skills. We were probably stronger and fitter than we had ever been, but we felt a massive weight of expectation on all of our shoulders. Clive had always insisted he be judged on the World Cup, which put a lot of pressure on him and us.’

  England played two ‘Premiership All Stars’ sides, a kind of Barbarians of the league, at Twickenham and Anfield, which were won 92–17 and 67–14 respectively, before two Tests at Twickenham against the USA and Canada. The USA match was won 106–8, another rout that hardly prepared the side for the rigours of a knockout tournament. The Canadians offered a sterner test but they too were swept aside 36–11.

  The 1999 World Cup had a bizarre format, which was subsequently revised. There were five pools of four teams, from which eight quarter-finalists would emerge. The pool winners would automatically qualify for the quarters, but the runners-up from each pool would have to play an additional play-off match against another second-placed side. England knew that if they defeated the All Blacks they would get a full week’s recovery and an easier path through to the final. If they lost, they would have to play a midweek qualifier and then face each of the southern hemisphere giants in consecutive matches to lift the trophy.

  Though t
he tournament was being held in Wales, the Welsh Rugby Union had promised England, Scotland and France that they could host matches if they supported their bid. This meant that there were fixtures held in the Scottish Borders, Edinburgh, Manchester, London and Paris. It was a dislocated tournament as a result but it gave those nations a crucial home advantage during the pool stages – something that England hoped would give them a critical edge over their rivals.

  England’s opening game against Italy followed a similar pattern to the warm-up games as the Azzurri were defeated 67–7. The third match in the pool was against Tonga and, after the Pacific islanders were reduced to fourteen men, England powered to a crushing 101–10 victory. But the key fixture was England’s second pool match – against tournament favourites New Zealand.

  ‘I realise now that I made a fundamental mistake in selection,’ said Woodward of that game against the All Blacks. ‘I played Wilkinson at fly-half with De Glanville and Guscott in the centre. I should have played Grayson at fly-half with Wilkinson and Guscott in the centre. Selection is the most important part of this job. Selection wins or loses you more matches than anything else... Jonny had played most of the season at centre, with Paul Grayson at fly-half. Playing Grayson at fly-half would have given us real leadership and experience, which Wilko was still acquiring.’ It was perhaps an unfair reflection to blame the loss on the selection of the fly-half. Wilkinson was far from the lone culprit as the All Blacks powered their way to victory. While the management had analysed New Zealand’s strengths – particularly the threat of giant wing Jonah Lomu – and concluded that a tight kicking game was the best route to success, looking to turn Lomu by kicking over him and pressing him hard and fast in defence to prevent him building up speed and momentum, Lomu was not the only weapon in the All Blacks’ armoury. The fact that some of Wilkinson’s kicking was not as accurate as it needed to be is a fair point, but it did not result in the game-changing try – which did, indeed, come from Lomu, who was as devastating as ever.