White Gold

by Peter Burns

  The first match was against France at Twickenham and both sides knew how important the result would be to deciding the outcome of their respective championship challenges. ‘I’m expecting it to be tough and to go down to the wire because there’s very little between us,’ said Martin Johnson at the time. ‘We’re favourites, but only because we’re playing at Twickenham. That, I hope, will give us the edge. But nobody should bet too much money on either of us. It’s going to be too close for that.’

  To counter the threat of Serge Betsen hounding Wilkinson out of the game as he had done the year before, and in the absence of the injured Mike Catt, Woodward promoted Wilkinson’s fly-half understudy, Charlie Hodgson, into the No.12 shirt to assist Wilkinson with his kicking and distribution duties.

  Jason Leonard was set to lead England out for the France clash to celebrate reaching his one hundredth cap – an extraordinary achievement for any player, but all the more so for one in as attritional a position as the front-row.

  It should have been a day of joy and optimism, but a dark cloud hung over the England squad. On the eve of the match, Mark Evans of Harlequins had visited the camp at Pennyhill Park to break the news that young England scrum-half Nick Duncombe had died suddenly from a rare bacterial infection while at a training camp in Lanzarote. It was a devastating shock – all the more so for his Harlequins teammates, particularly Dan Luger. ‘Nick and he were very close friends, almost like brothers, and he took the loss harder than anyone,’ said Matt Dawson. ‘I can only imagine how horrendous it must have been for him to be told his best friend had died and then to have to run out at Twickenham and take on France. In the same circumstances, I don’t know that I could have gone out onto the pitch, I really don’t.’

  Over the previous few years, tragedy had often surrounded the camp. In September 2000 Will Greenwood had lost his prematurely born son, Freddie, and just a few weeks later Ben Cohen lost his father. Martin Johnson’s mother died of cancer in 2002, Mike Catt’s infant daughter had narrowly escaped death after heart surgery and now this: one of their own taken from them. ‘When you’ve been through personal shit it’s a game of rugby, nothing more,’ said Will Greenwood of the perspective that the squad had gained through such terrible adversity. ‘Losing a game of rugby doesn’t even come close to what some of the boys have been through. We were so much tighter as a group due to the sad times.’

  It was an element of growth in the team that Woodward would never have wished for, but the misfortunes that struck the players individually had a unifying effect and they became more than teammates because of them. These events swept away the macho bravado that is so often present in team sport, particularly at international level where players come from a variety of different clubs and backgrounds and which can present an obstacle to collective success; instead the petty, parochial differences were stripped away and their shared humanity was exposed by raw, painful emotion. Within the confines of the England camp there was a structure that existed that allowed the players to escape, for a time, the burden of their personal tragedies. The game may have been revealed to be nothing more than a game, but it also offered them solace and an escape from what they were dealing with.

  The match against France saw a relatively poor performance from England, but with the news of Duncombe’s passing could it have been anything else? What is most impressive is that, despite the shock of the news and the effect it had on the players, the team were still able to pay tribute to his memory by overcoming their Gallic rivals. England lost the try count 3–1 but Wilkinson outgunned his opposite number, Gérald Merceron, and England were able to emerge 25–17 winners.

  England’s second match of the tournament was away to Wales, who were smarting from an opening-round loss to Italy in Rome. Once again there were very few fireworks from England, but they produced a cool, calculating and assured performance. Wilkinson was again deadly with the boot, scoring two penalties, two drop-goals and two conversions to complement tries from Will Greenwood and young flanker Joe Worsley, and they left Cardiff with a 26–9 win.

  In the build-up to the Italy match, Jason Robinson sustained a minor injury that Woodward was unwilling to risk against a side that England were expected to beat convincingly. It would have been natural for him to turn to either Iain Balshaw, Austin Healey or Tim Stimpson to fill the full-back role. But Woodward’s thoughts strayed elsewhere, to a player that he had not considered beyond the A team for more than five years – Wasps full-back-cum-wing-cum-centre, Josh Lewsey.

  Lewsey was a product of Watford Grammar School for Boys, where he had played fly-half. Sport had come easily to him, academia less so, but he had worked hard and earned a place at Bristol University to read physiology. Concerned by the strain the cost of his university education would place on his parents, Lewsey applied for a commission to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He was accepted and received a bursary in return for a promise to attend Sandhurst for his officer training upon graduation. During his second year at university he joined Bristol, made the club’s first team and, as the sport was now professional, began to earn a decent salary from the game.

  He wrote to Sandhurst and requested to defer his entry for a year. The academy accepted and he signed professional terms with Wasps. After his first season he wrote and deferred again, but he was aware that he would have to make a decision soon – either to quit professional rugby or to repay his bursary.

  In 1998 he was selected for the Tour of Hell. While he endured the ignominy of the 76–0 loss to the Wallabies, he also suffered the embarrassment of Clive Woodward picking him out in a team meeting as a physical role model for the other players to aspire to. At a relatively modest 5ft 10in, Lewsey had long been professional in his attitudes to diet and training, knowing that he would not survive long in the professional game on his speed and skill alone, and in terms of physical conditioning he was years ahead of many of his teammates. He did not want for bravery either. In the second Test against New Zealand, Jonah Lomu made a break and seemed certain to score. Only Lewsey stood in his way – a blonde-haired speed bump, giving away seven inches in height and five stone in weight. Lewsey felled the big man and the try was averted.

  Lewsey seemed to be proving himself with England, but it didn’t last. On the squad’s return to London, he dropped off the international radar.

  He spent several frustrating years seeing others selected for England squads ahead of him and became increasingly disillusioned with life as a pro rugby player. He spoke to his club’s director of rugby, Nigel Melville, and they concocted a plan whereby he would continue to play for Wasps while finally fulfilling his promise to Sandhurst.

  ‘Combining officer training with my rugby career at Wasps was incredibly hard, because I was determined to do precisely the same as everyone in my year at Sandhurst,’ said Lewsey. ‘What attracted me to the Army was that it was all about leadership. It was something that challenged me physically and mentally.’

  There was a twist to this tale, however. Lewsey had graduated from Sandhurst in 2001 and then served for two years as an officer in the Royal Artillery. He had given up on his dream to play for England but Woodward, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, had not forgotten about him; the caveat was that Lewsey had to return to full-time rugby. Lewsey could have continued on in some capacity in the Army, with a desk job of some kind, but the prospect didn’t sit well with him. ‘I just couldn’t feel comfortable taking the same pay and rank as friends and peers who could be dodging bullets while I swanned about west London playing rugby.’

  So he made the decision and resigned his commission. ‘Leaving the Army was the hardest decision I’ve ever made,’ he said. ‘I hold my head up because while I was there, I did the same as every guy: no favours, got the extra tuition, passed the same exams. I have only good memories from my time in the Army.’

  Lewsey was on a tour with Wasps in Cornwall when Jason Robinson went down injured and the call came from Woodward.

  And so it wa
s that Josh Lewsey made his home debut for England in the 40–5 win over Italy, scored two tries and ran with such balance, poise and incisiveness that the rugby world was forced to sit up and take notice that a new star appeared to have been born. Despite the searing ability of Jason Robinson, such was the command of Lewsey’s play that he made the No.15 shirt his own – unequivocally. Robinson, when he returned from injury, was moved back to the wing. Woodward now had an embarrassment of riches at his disposal. But looking at the new back-three combination of Robinson, Lewsey and Ben Cohen, he knew that he had an exquisite balance of pace, power and guile. The World Cup jigsaw pieces were falling into place.

  The Italy match had also seen Jonny Wilkinson named captain while Johnson was rested, further developing the leadership core within the squad. But it was not all good news. Charlie Hodgson, the primary back-up to Wilkinson in the fly-half position, cruelly suffered a cruciate ligament injury that would rule him out of England contention until 2004. It was a tragic blow for the young Sale player, but it saw the return of an old England favourite in his place. Paul Grayson, who had last played for England during the 1999 World Cup quarter-final loss to the Springboks, was reintroduced to the squad.

  The fourth game of the tournament was against Scotland at Twickenham. Martin Johnson returned to the team and the familiar triumvirate of Dallaglio, Hill and Back lined up once more in the back-row, while Jason Leonard prepared himself for an unprecedented fourteenth Calcutta Cup clash.

  England’s performance against Scotland was their best of the championship so far. They scored four tries through Robinson (with two), Cohen and Lewsey, while Wilkinson added a devastating seven kicks from seven attempts in a crushing 40–9 victory.

  Not only did the win seal the deal on a Grand Slam showdown with Ireland in Dublin (with the Irish also making it four from four after seeing off the Welsh in Cardiff thanks to a last-minute drop-goal from fly-half Ronan O’Gara), but the successful defence of the Calcutta Cup took England’s consecutive winning tally at Twickenham to an astonishing twenty-one matches. When Humphrey Walters had spoken of his dream for Fortress Twickenham back in 1997, even he wouldn’t have imagined that it would come to fruition in quite so emphatic a fashion.

  And so it was on to Dublin, the graveyard of England’s 2001 Grand Slam hopes, where they would be competing for the Slam, the Six Nations title, the Triple Crown and the chance to exorcise some demons.

  *

  Bright spring sunshine leaked through the oak-framed windows of an anteroom at Pennyhill Park. This was the war room.

  At one end of the room, a semicircle of chairs had been arranged around a whiteboard that was covered in notes and diagrams. Woodward was standing by the board, pen in hand, deep in discussion with those sitting: Andy Robinson, Phil Larder, Dave Alred, Phil Keith-Roach, Tony Biscombe, Simon Hardy and Louise Ramsay.

  Although the group had moved on from the subject, and were now discussing the logistics of their training day in Dublin on the Saturday before Sunday’s Grand Slam showdown, Dave Alred’s eyes kept drifting to a word that Woodward had written in capital letters near the top of the board. Not only was it written in capitals, but it had been circled and underlined. Twice. It read: CHOKERS.

  Chokers. The albatross around their necks; the elephant in the room. Five years. Five Grand Slam attempts. Five missed opportunities. France had denied them twice during the course of the tournament, but on three occasions it had come down to the final weekend and England had bottled it on each occasion.

  Alred smiled to himself. The subject had been discussed by the group and the point had been hammered home that, this time, there could be no excuses for choking. The team had to deliver. The pressure to win the Grand Slam was greater than ever. So why was Alred smiling? Because this year it all felt different. The team had matured. They had all experienced the agony of defeat, of having the Grand Slam snatched from them time and time again. But they had embraced that pain and they had learnt from it. And Alred, who was at that time in the middle of a PhD at Loughborough University examining performance under pressure, knew better than most the mental tenacity of the England players that surrounded him.

  ‘The most fundamental change,’ he said, ‘has been looking at the whole issue of mental preparation, trying to ensure players always perform at or very near their potential whatever the interference. If there’s anything I can do to get a player to go where he’s never been before in terms of the level of his performance, that’s my job.’

  Alred had taken on the role of the team psychologist to such an extent that he was individually coaching them in ways to cope with pressure situations – from playing crowd noises over the speaker system at Twickenham while the kickers practised or the forwards went through their line-out routines, to establishing trigger words for each player to help calm them in moments of extreme stress (something they were encouraged to do for a teammate as well).

  ‘When the bullets start flying it’s useful to have someone alongside you who can prompt you,’ said Alred. ‘It’s not something you ram down people’s throats, it’s something you offer. If there’s one thing I can help them with, it’s worth it. How do you know that one thing is not the difference between a ball being caught or dropped?’

  Once again it was about marginal gains, ensuring that no stone was left unturned. At this level, Alred knew, the difference between winning and losing was often down to mental attitude. Who wanted it the most? Who was prepared to put themselves through the most pain? Who could keep coolest under pressure? And although he would never have wished for it, he, like Woodward, realised that the personal tragedies that had befallen the squad had provided them all with valuable perspective. If they were able to remember that it was just a game, then there was much less chance of them becoming overwhelmed by an occasion; if they could retain a sense of perspective then they had a greater chance of remaining calm and controlled. Control the controllables, be in charge of your own destiny.

  ‘Yeah, there is pressure,’ said Josh Lewsey at the time. ‘But it pales into insignificance when compared to bigger, more important things. What kind of pressure were the guys who fought in the world wars under? We get to play rugby now because they were prepared to fight for our freedom. I’ve got mates in Iraq. They text me before the games; I text them. I don’t want to sound like I am belittling the game, but how can I compare the pressure I’m under with the pressure they’re under? All I’ve got to do is play eighty minutes of rugby. I don’t have to dig a trench, I don’t have to turn up to a bombed building and pick up dismembered bodies. There are countless people – not just soldiers – who work incredibly hard for average rewards, and I realise how privileged I am to be playing this game for a living.’

  Yes, reflected Alred, this year everything felt different.

  *

  With the Grand Slam showdown scheduled for Sunday, 30 March, Dublin boiled with anticipation.

  In the build-up to the game, Martin Johnson was candid about the importance of victory to the England squad and his openness spoke not only as a searing statement of intent, but also of the no-excuses environment that now epitomised the camp. ‘Either side would take a 3–0 win right now, I can promise you. In fact, I’d grab a one-point victory any day. Whatever it takes: penalties, drop-goals, anything. All we have to do is win. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t care how we achieve it. I don’t care how badly we play, just as long as we emerge the winners. People use the phrase, “must-win games” all the time, but this is just about as “must-win” as you can get. It would be a massive relief to win and a huge weight off our shoulders. No matter what this side have achieved over the years, we’ve never won a Grand Slam. That’s a huge failing to our name. We’re absolutely desperate to win it this time. Above all else, we want to win it for ourselves.’

  Woodward was equally blunt about the importance of securing the result. The time for learning lessons was well and truly over, now was the time for the team to start delivering. ‘Defeat?’
he said before the team flew to Dublin. ‘It’s not even entered my mind. Next Monday doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned. The World Cup doesn’t exist. All our thoughts are focused on Sunday. This match is the culmination of four years’ work. That’s what it’s boiled down to. The pressure to win this match and this Grand Slam comes from within. There are no more learning curves. Winning against Ireland is all that matters. I’ve not even thought of the ramifications if it weren’t to go our way.’

  It had been fifty-five years since Ireland’s last Grand Slam. Despite the closeness of their win over Wales the previous week, what had been most impressive had been their claiming of the result despite playing poorly. In the previous games they had swept past Scotland 36–6, Italy 37–13 and France 15–12 before pipping Wales 25–24. Ireland had two fantastic playmakers at their disposal in Ulster’s David Humphreys and Munster’s Ronan O’Gara, who covered Humphreys from the bench. The fly-halves could both play a delicately controlled territorial game, keeping play deep in the opposition half where their well-drilled forwards would batter away like a green wave, setting up time and space for the outside backs, where Ireland’s captain Brian O’Driscoll, considered by many to be the world’s best centre, lurked with perpetual intent. This was the acid test of England’s quality that Woodward had longed for.

  ‘I think in previous years when we dropped the odd game that cost us Grand Slams it was because we weren’t so much focused on winning as we were on really playing,’ said Woodward. ‘But by the time 2003 came around I changed things and I wanted to put the pressure of winning on the guys. I said that if we were to have any chance of lifting the World Cup, we had to win the Grand Slam – it wasn’t about entertainment any more, it was about results. I wanted to put that pressure on them to see how they handled it.

  ‘The night before we played Ireland, Tony Biscombe put together a montage of clips to the Eminem track “Lose Yourself ”, with the lines, “If you had one shot, or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, would you capture it or just let it slip?” And I really rammed home that unless we won the game and won it well, we had no chance in the World Cup. I really turned up the pressure – which is the exact opposite of what you’re meant to do as a coach, but I felt it was really important to do it. And the players responded magnificently.’