White Gold

by Peter Burns

Following this, Woodward made an excursion to Paris on his own to meet the France coach, Bernard Laporte. ‘Rugby nations working together should not be unthinkable,’ wrote Woodward in a 2013 article for the Daily Mail. ‘We were enemies in the eyes of the media and our teams but in private we spoke often and got on well. I went to see him because I wanted to start having regular training sessions with the French. I made it clear that if England were not to win the World Cup in 2003 then I wanted a northern hemisphere team to win it. New ideas are always a challenge, so I spoke with a few of my players. They did not jump up and down with joy at the prospect but also nobody said “no”.

  ‘Bernard was supportive of the idea, but he could not get the support of his players for something so radical. He eventually called me saying it would be too difficult logistically! For me it was just common sense. Can you imagine the scrummaging, the defensive and attacking sessions – or the fitness competition on show in the gym?

  ‘I wanted to create an intensity in training that was greater than any Test match. Most importantly, training with the French would have left the southern hemisphere teams wondering what we were doing. If someone told me New Zealand and Australia were training together ahead of the World Cup, it would just reinforce my feeling that they were once again leaving nothing to chance and their collective mindset was ahead of their northern rivals.’

  *

  As the players and management gathered at the beginning of the 2000–01 season, they were all well aware of how gruelling the next two years would be. There was an autumn series, the 2001 Six Nations, a Lions tour to Australia for those selected, a tour to North America for the remainder of the England squad, another autumn series and then the 2002 Six Nations, with intense club matches filling the spaces in between.

  The congestion of fixtures brought into sharp focus what the players were about to put their bodies through for club and country – and the financial remuneration they would receive for doing so. At the time the players received £6,000 a match when they represented England. Considering the money that was pouring into the RFU coffers through TV rights, sponsorship, ticket sales, corporate hospitality and replica kit sales there was a strong feeling that those the circus revolved around weren’t getting their fair share. It was decided by the playing group that three senior players – Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio and Matt Dawson – would represent their collective interests in negotiations with the RFU.

  ‘We were being paid less than 5 per cent of the turnover,’ said Matt Dawson. ‘All we wanted was fair recompense. We didn’t want to be like Premiership footballers earning millions of pounds a year and bankrupting the sport, but neither were we prepared to undervalue ourselves when we have probably not got even ten years at the top.’

  The players wanted a new deal with two-thirds of a revised match fee guaranteed to them, with the final third paid as a bonus based on the result. The RFU wanted it staggered in reverse – but the players contested that any man who played for England would play his heart out no matter what and in a game that could be decided by the finest margins, it was wrong for the payments to be weighted in that manner.

  As well as match fees the players argued that the image rights of the players, which had been sold by the RFU to its sponsors, were not the RFU’s to sell. There was no contract in place assigning the RFU that right, so the players demanded compensation.

  Added to this was compensation for other players in the extended squad who committed time and effort at training weeks but didn’t make the Test match twenty-two. ‘You would have thirty players in the England squad in the week of an international but by Saturday afternoon, the squad was reduced to twenty-two,’ said Dallaglio. ‘The eight people left out had to cope with the disappointment of not making the match-day twenty-two and they weren’t getting anything for their time with the squad. We argued that they had to be paid.’

  The negotiations lasted throughout the summer and into the autumn and had still not been settled by the time of the first fixture of the autumn series, against Australia, which was then followed by matches against Argentina and South Africa.

  Australia, the world champions, arrived in London amid much fanfare. After the win against South Africa in Bloemfontein the question that was hanging in the air was whether England possessed the consistency to beat the southern hemisphere giants on a regular basis, or whether they could manage only one-off triumphs.

  A month before the autumn series kicked off, Ben Cohen’s father was attacked outside a nightclub in Northampton. He was hospitalised but, after several weeks in intensive care, he appeared to be making a recovery. The week before the Australia match, however, he passed away. ‘Clive was brilliant with Ben,’ said Austin Healey. ‘He took him to one side, broke the news in the best way he could and arranged for him to go home. He told him not to worry about England – if he felt up to playing, the shirt would be waiting for him.’ But Cohen couldn’t muster the strength to play and withdrew from the match squad on the Thursday before the game. His place in the team was taken by Healey and the squad resolved to do everything in their power to support their stricken teammate, knowing that a win would prove a fitting tribute.

  As part of the preparation for the autumn series, Tony Biscombe had analysed the statistics of England’s play in the ‘red zone’ (the opposition’s 22) and in key moments of the game (the opening ten minutes, the five minutes before and after half-time and the last ten to fifteen minutes of the match). One fascinating revelation that Biscombe made was that it took, on average, twenty seconds to score a try. In the build-up to the 2000 autumn series he showed the team a montage of tries that showed this. The point was, if England were behind going into the final minutes of a match, there was no need to panic – as they had done at Wembley and Murrayfield – because the clock was running down. They just had to be aware of their field position and their time management. If they stayed patient, they could construct a means to score. It was a theory that was to prove significant against Australia.

  The game was a tight, physical affair. Australia seemed to have broken the English stranglehold when Joe Roff lanced off his wing, stepped past Austin Healey and then passed to full-back Matt Burke to score. But the game-changing moment was still to come in a final, extraordinary denouement. Late in the second half Woodward decided to make a tactical change, sending on Iain Balshaw, the twenty-one-year-old full-back/winger from Bath. Balshaw was tall and willowy in build and in possession of incredible speed. He had won his first cap against Ireland in that year’s Six Nations and had been a bench player for every Test match since then. He was electrically quick and desperate to prove himself. In the short time that he was on he made a huge impression, twice breaking through the Wallaby defence, but his key contribution came eight minutes into injury time. Gathering the ball to the left of the Wallaby posts he noticed that the defensive line was completely flat and was drifting across the field to close down the attack. He had two men outside him – winger Dan Luger and further out flanker Neil Back. With the drifting defence there was no room for the attack to go anywhere but into touch if Balshaw passed the ball to Luger. But there was space in behind. Very little, but space nevertheless. He chipped the ball over the defensive line and Luger rushed on to it, just forcing downwards pressure on the ball as it skidded over the try-line and barely moments before he himself slid into touch. The decision on whether or not it was a try was referred to the video referee who, after several minutes of examination, awarded the score. Wilkinson stepped up to take the conversion from the touchline and coolly slotted the kick to give England a 22–19 victory.

  ‘Never once in those dramatic last few minutes did I doubt we were going to win. There was no panic,’ said Wilkinson. ‘To turn a game we could have won against a top side into a game we did win was an important step in our development.’

  It was momentous – back-to-back victories over two of the top three sides in the world. But unfortunately the celebrations did not last long. In the week that f
ollowed, when the sole focus should have been on preparing to face Argentina, the contract negotiations with the RFU turned bitterly sour.

  ‘Lots of people say things like, “I’d walk over broken glass to represent my country” and “I’d play for England for nothing”. I understand those sentiments,’ said Martin Johnson. ‘But I think people forget that many of us have played for England for nothing. We virtually have walked over broken glass, too... The fact is we would go through all the pain and the stress for nothing again if we had to. We would do so gladly because we want to play for England, because we know it is an honour and because we recognise that we are very privileged to have been chosen to do it. But if you want us to do it for nothing, don’t charge £50-£200 a ticket at Test matches, don’t demand millions in TV revenue and don’t look for massive sponsorship deals using us.’

  The players felt that they had two options – to threaten to strike or to refuse to take part in any commercial activities, such as signing autographs, wearing sponsored kit and appearing at sponsors’ dinners. In the build-up to the Australia match they informed the RFU that they would be taking the latter option. Woodward was desperately worried that their actions would cause too much of a distraction before the Australia match and told them that if they did that, he would just pick a new team of players; he convinced them to hold fire, which they did.

  ‘After speaking with all the players and getting confirmation of their intent to strike, I asked them to leave the team hotel since they were not there to prepare for a Test match,’ said Woodward. ‘I also advised them that if they wanted to play for England they should be back at Pennyhill Park by 11 o’clock on Wednesday morning ready to train, or not bother coming back.’

  ‘Clive’s role in the dispute upset me a little because I felt he shouldn’t have got involved,’ said Dallaglio. ‘He took our threat to strike personally, as if we were letting him down... Clive’s interference drove a wedge between the players and the coaching staff. A lot of things were said that didn’t need to be said.’

  But following that win there was still no movement from Francis Baron. The players felt that they had little option but to take as drastic a measure as they could; Johnson, Dallaglio and Dawson informed the RFU that the squad intended to strike for the Argentina match.

  ‘We all knew Johnno was a great rugby captain from the 1997 Lions tour,’ said Mike Catt, ‘but away from the pitch he had always come across as a quiet guy who never pushed himself to the fore in anything. All that changed with the strike, during which he was brilliant. In fact, magnificent... He never flinched. He wasn’t intimidated by anyone.’

  There was a stalemate for two days until, at last, the RFU relented. They didn’t concede to every demand made by the players but the two parties eventually reached a compromise that they were happy with and things got back on track. Sort of. In many ways it was similar to the moratorium year that the RFU announced after the game went open in 1995. ‘The moratorium year was a case of the RFU panicking and holding the floodwaters at bay,’ said Jason Leonard. ‘It may have seemed like a good idea at the time – to hold fire and think about things for a year – but it meant that the rest of the world and the clubs moved ahead of England. It meant that while all the world’s leading nations had centrally contracted players, and had begun working on a way forward for the sport, we were all sitting around waiting to see what would happen.’ The contract negotiations that led to the strike continued into the spring, by which time the Premiership clubs had signed blanket agreements with the players; with such a strong position they negotiated as a group for player release to the England set-up, which costs the RFU several million pounds a year. The RFU once again failed drastically to improve the chances of England’s success as they continued to lack the control of their players that other unions around the world enjoy. The true consequences of this would be revealed only much later.

  Despite the disruption to their preparation, England went on to defeat Argentina 19–0, the team welcomed Ben Cohen back into the fold following his father’s funeral, and the young wing paid tribute with a fine performance that included a try.

  ‘I was impressed by the way Clive regained the trust of the players after the strike threat,’ said Dallaglio. ‘He regained lost ground by talking about the situation, and we all accepted that he genuinely believed what he was doing was the right thing... everyone seemed to realise it had been a strange, one-off situation, and should not be allowed to destroy what we were trying to achieve.’

  ‘By the time the chapter had been concluded we, as a group of people, were a truly united force, not just on the pitch but off it,’ said Catt. ‘As a squad of players we had taken the action on, provoked a major scandal, and reacted to it as one... It is no coincidence England went from strength to strength after the strike.’

  Refocused and with a full week of uninterrupted preparation, the team readied themselves for the Springboks and the inevitable physical onslaught of the South African team determined to avenge their defeat in Bloemfontein. But for all their efforts, the Springboks just couldn’t cope with the power of the English forwards combined with the speed and attacking width of the backs – or the unerring boot of Wilkinson, who kicked six penalties and a conversion of Will Greenwood’s try, which he had also helped to set up. After a huge driving maul from the England forwards, Wilkinson had received the ball on the run, shimmied to sidestep, turned his head as if readying himself to switch the ball to a late runner, but instead delicately placed the ball into the arms of Greenwood as the centre hit a flat line off him. Greenwood carved right through the South African defence and skipped past full-back Percy Montgomery to score.

  ‘That was a moment of beauty in a fierce contest,’ said Wilkinson. ‘A lot of blood was spilt but I didn’t think it was a dirty game – in fact, I thought it was a good one.’ For all that Wilkinson may have relished the brutality of the battle, the casualty list was high by the time the game was over. Wilkinson himself had his head cut, both Richard Hill and Neil Back required stitches – the latter totalling thirty-one – and Phil Greening broke a finger. But all four men were still on the field at the final whistle to celebrate the 25–17 victory.

  *

  As Woodward continued to tweak and build his team, so too did he continue to shuffle the cards behind the scenes. At the beginning of 2001, Nathan Martin moved to become performance services director and his role as team manager was assumed by Louise Ramsay.

  Ramsay had spent several years working for the British Olympic Association in a planning and organisational role for the Summer and Winter Olympics, including Sydney 2000. She finished working for the BOA in the spring of 2001 and shortly afterwards, driven by her interest in rugby, applied to the RFU to see if there might be an opportunity for her there. She timed her application to perfection as someone with her skill set was exactly what Woodward had been looking for – someone who understood the level of intense detail required to create and optimise an environment for elite athletes, who was prepared to work the long hours required to deliver on these requirements and who was obsessive in ensuring each was delivered on time and in the correct manner. For Woodward, Ramsay was like a gift from the heavens and helped enormously as England prepared for the 2001 Six Nations opener against Wales.

  The game against their old rivals was England’s first at the Millennium Stadium. Much had been made of Graham Henry’s impact as head coach; the New Zealander had been nicknamed ‘the Great Redeemer’ as he turned around the fortunes of the Wales team – with such success that he was named as head coach of the Lions tour to Australia that summer. Although Wales had been heavily beaten at Twickenham the previous year, their tails were raised after their heroics at Wembley in 1999 and the team, the press and the fans in the Principality were desperate to lay down a marker against England in their new home.

  As the teams gathered in the tunnel the noise from the crowd was deafening. The roof had been closed and the thunder of 75,000 roaring voices bounced o
ff the lid of the stadium to reverberate through the air.

  Martin Johnson stood at the front of the England line; a trickle of sweat ran down his forehead and gathered on his glowering brow as he stared straight ahead at the field before him. An official appeared at the head of the tunnel and gave him the signal that it was time for them to run out. Johnson nodded and then turned to the men behind him. ‘Hear that?’ he growled, gesturing over his shoulder. ‘Let’s silence it.’ Then he turned and began striding out into the glow of the floodlights.

  And silence it they did. They scored six tries that afternoon, including a hat-trick from centre Will Greenwood.

  ‘It was almost as if someone had suddenly flicked a switch and sent us into overdrive,’ said Richard Hill. ‘Suddenly we were playing out Clive’s dream of heads-up rugby, feeding off each other so well that the numbers on our backs became almost irrelevant.’

  ‘We were cock-a-hoop with our display, as any team would be,’ said Greenwood. ‘But it was even more special because for so many decades Cardiff had proved to be a barren hunting ground for England. To thump them by a record score [44–15] was deeply satisfying.’

  The team played host to Italy for game two, and continued with the attacking brilliance they had displayed in Cardiff, tearing through the Italian ranks almost at will, scoring a total of ten tries, including a stunning length-of-the-field effort by quicksilver full-back Iain Balshaw, while Wilkinson kicked thirteen of his fifteen attempts at goal and also scored a try in the thumping 80–23 victory. England ran rampant across the park, the backs were given the ball on a plate time and time again and the back-row, in particular, seemed to be everywhere. The trio of Neil Back, Lawrence Dallaglio and Richard Hill were beginning to be recognised as the most formidable unit on the planet – and were soon dubbed the Holy Trinity.

  ‘By 2001 or so, we were probably starting to think as a unit,’ said Hill of the back-row triumvirate. ‘I’m not sure it was telepathic but we could read each other’s games perfectly. When we first got together, we used to walk through our moves every week but as time went on we knew each other’s positions off by heart.’