White Gold

by Peter Burns

  The 25–14 win signalled a tenth successive victory over the southern hemisphere giants – a record that completely outstripped anything done before in the history of the game. The variation in England’s play was shown to outstanding effect that night – power, finesse, tight attack, wide attack, deep attack, flat attack, expert kicking – the full gamut. ‘The greater the pressure, the better our guys perform,’ said Woodward the next day. ‘We have no fear now about playing anyone, anywhere. We relish the pressure on us.’

  After the tour Woodward insisted that the squad stop off in Perth for a few days. Not only did it give them some well-deserved downtime, but they were staying in the same hotel where they would be based for their opening World Cup pool games and they had a couple of light training sessions at Perth High School, which would serve as their World Cup training ground, and wandered around the Subiaco Oval where their games would be staged. Woodward understood the importance of familiarity when away from home and how distracting an alien environment could be. It was another marginal gain notched up for his team.

  EIGHT

  THE ANATOMY OF PREPARATION

  ‘The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.’

  Muhammad Ali

  AFTER THREE WEEKS off, the squad met up again for pre-season training in late July. But even while they were away from the England camp, the players hadn’t been idle.

  ‘We weren’t due to reconvene until 21 July, but we were all given personal fitness programmes to follow during the break,’ said Richard Hill. An extended squad was selected for the pre-World Cup training camp and every player would be vying with several others for a place in the final squad that would leave for Australia. There could be no time for complacency, no time to rest. Every player understood the need to hit their straps and impress as much as they could – or else face the very real possibility of missing out on their dream of competing at the World Cup.

  The team had three warm-up games scheduled for the end of August and the start of September: Wales at the Millennium Stadium and France in Marseille and at Twickenham. They were three Tests that would get them match-ready and were a world away in class to the warm-ups arranged before the 1999 tournament. But in many respects, as rigorous a workout as those matches would be, they paled into insignificance when compared to the physical torture the players would endure at the hands of Dave Reddin and the other coaches at Pennyhill Park.

  Woodward arranged for a temporary pavilion to be erected beside the pitch at the hotel and for all the gym equipment to be transferred there from Twickenham. This meant that all their training facilities were in one place; the temporary gym would soon be dubbed the ‘House of Pain’ by the players.

  At the start of the season Woodward had introduced ‘nine winning behaviours’ to the team – defence, basics, contact, pressure, kicking, team attack, self-control, tactics and leadership. All nine had been taken to world-class levels throughout the season and had made significant contributions to their success. Arguably the most crucial, and the one that held all the others together, was the last: leadership. Over the course of six years, Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio, Matt Dawson, Phil Vickery, Jonny Wilkinson, Jason Leonard and Neil Back had all captained the side. The collective knowledge, cumulative experience of performing under pressure and the charisma of these men was not only reassuring for the other members of the team but also a source of intimidation for opposition teams. These players had all been there and done it and would be able to respond positively to any situation thrown at them either on or off the pitch. Martin Johnson epitomised the maturity of a squad that had been together for years, had endured so much both collectively and individually, and had gained a valuable perspective on what they were doing. ‘We weren’t good enough to win it last time, it’s as simple as that,’ said Johnson during the training weeks at Pennyhill Park. ‘And I’ll tell you one of the main reasons why this was so: we were all guilty of getting it out of proportion; the players, the management, everyone involved. We got it out of kilter, we made it too big. I can tell you now that most guys didn’t even enjoy the 1999 tournament, and not just because we were dumped out of it by the Springboks.

  ‘Now, I just think the whole team’s managed to put some perspective on life, especially those who have suffered private grief in recent times. A lot of the guys have been through some tough times off the field and it’s helped us all to understand that, as desperate as we are to win the World Cup, life goes on whatever. Whether I return as captain of the world champions or not, I’ll still have my wife and my daughter, hopefully my health and the rest of my life to look forward to. I’m not saying I won’t be bothered – I’ve put my heart and soul into winning this World Cup – but I’ve gained some perspective in my life which I maybe didn’t have four years ago.’

  When the team had been Down Under for the summer tour, Woodward had had the pitch at Pennyhill Park dug up and relaid by the groundsmen from Twickenham. Not only did it serve their purposes to be training on an international-standard surface, but it also reduced the risk of rolled ankles or other soft tissue injuries caused by running on an uneven surface.

  ‘In my estimation,’ said Woodward at the time, repeating an assertion that he had long believed in, ‘the top four or five teams at the World Cup will be of roughly the same ability, and will be coached roughly as well as each other. The key factor could be which team can find that extra edge somewhere.’

  Woodward was still obsessed with the philosophy of marginal gains and understood that constant small improvements might prove to be the difference between his team’s performance and that of the opposition. It was revolutionary in rugby at the time, but it was a well-recognised practice in other disciplines and has since become a staple of elite sport. From Roger Federer only ever using his best racket for Wimbledon to the Team GB cycling team putting away their bikes after the Beijing Olympics and pulling them out of storage only in the build-up to the London Olympics, modern sport is awash with stories of athletes depriving themselves of the best equipment outside of the most important events in order to give themselves a crucial edge when it matters most. The art of critical non-essentials and marginal gains begun by Woodward was taken to a new level by Sir Dave Brailsford and the Team Sky and Team GB cycling teams that he oversaw.

  Brailsford’s teams have become a global force, winning thirty medals over three Olympic Games, eighteen of them gold, while in 2012 Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first British rider to win the Tour de France, followed into the maillot jaune by Sky teammate Chris Froome in 2013.

  As well as a meticulously planned training regime for each athlete, Brailsford and his team have obsessed over ‘the aggregation of marginal gains’: from spraying alcohol on tyres to remove dirt, to visored aerodynamic helmets; heated shorts that keep muscles warm, to studying the sleep patterns of the athletes to determine the best positions for them to lie in bed to achieve the deepest sleep, and even specialist guidance on washing their hands to reduce the risk of illness.

  In many respects these make Woodward’s obsessions look tame, but it serves to emphasise that he was a thinker ahead of the curve rather than simply a mad dreamer. ‘In professional sport, everybody is looking for the edge,’ said Woodward, ‘It’s getting smaller and smaller the more competitive the world of sport becomes. Take Tiger Woods. If someone asks him why he’s better than the rest of the world, he talks about his fitness; he doesn’t talk about his golf swing. He talks about feeling mentally stronger and that comes down to believing he’s the fittest. He’s an athlete. He’s as fit as the 100-metre champion. He thinks he’s fitter than any athlete in the world. He has massive mental strength.’

  ‘Winning in rugby is all about tiny percentages,’ said Phil Vickery. ‘That was one of the key messages from Clive. It’s not about making huge leaps forward – it would be great if it was, but at elite level no one makes huge leaps forward.
It’s the tiny little differences that separate the best from the rest. You have to be able to do everything you possibly can as frequently as you possibly can to make those tiny improvements.’

  ‘I remember Steve Redgrave coming to talk to the team on one occasion,’ said Jason Leonard. ‘And one of the things he said was that in all his years of training, he had one clear goal – to make that day’s training session just a bit better than the day before’s. If he could make tiny improvements every day, he would improve enormously over the course of the weeks, months and years.’

  Looking back over Woodward’s time in charge of the team up to that point made impressive reading. In Woodward’s sixty-eight matches as England’s head coach, they had won forty-nine, lost seventeen and drawn two. Since losing to South Africa in the 1999 World Cup, they were undefeated at Twickenham and had won thirty-five out of the forty matches they had played. But he knew that if they didn’t return from Australia with the World Cup he would be deemed a failure, and the players would be forever remembered as chokers rather than for their glorious achievements. But the failures of the past were valuable lessons that they had all learnt a huge amount from. As they approached the foothills of Everest, the entire squad had bought into the unequivocal importance of preparation.

  ‘Our preparation immediately before the World Cup was quite different from the preparation we did in 1999,’ said Jason Leonard. ‘There were no army assault courses or complicated team-building sessions. I think Woodward had learnt the lessons from 1999 and our training was quite specific to the task in hand and less harsh than it had been. We didn’t feel we had the natural enthusiasm trained out of us – we went into the tournament feeling fresher and fitter.’

  ‘As candidates for World Cup selection we wanted for nothing,’ said Matt Dawson. ‘The pitch outside was a beautiful surface, the gym inside as comprehensive as I’d ever seen. There were three lanes of equipment and never any wait to get on the machine of your choice. With no contact work scheduled, it was a great chance to get in really good shape.’

  Woodward was well aware of the need to strike a balance between training and rest. With three weeks spent in camp at Pennyhill Park working on strength and fitness, three weeks of Test matches, a week off and then departure for Australia, plus the tournament itself, the players were looking at between fourteen and fifteen weeks together – so it was important that a balance was struck between spending time together and getting away from the cocoon of the camp to spend time with friends and family away from rugby.

  ‘The training was intense and tough but incredibly well structured, planned and orchestrated,’ said Josh Lewsey in One Chance. ‘Weekends were a welcome break in which everyone bomb-busted away from captivity back to their wives and girlfriends. The Friday feeling was heightened when we had team Olympics – a series of team-based fitness competitions designed to knacker everyone just before a couple of days’ rest and before it started all over again the following Monday morning.’

  ‘Getting the balance right is vital for a squad’s morale,’ said Will Greenwood. ‘And I thought it was spot on to give us time apart, back with our families and friends. This was also when the decision to make that reconnaissance run to Perth in the summer paid off because it meant that we could delay our departure that little longer. Although we were the last team to arrive in Australia, we settled in as if our Perth hotel was a second home.’

  ‘It was like training with a club side because we all knew each other so well,’ said Phil Vickery in Raging Bull. ‘You knew other people’s scrum machine settings and what they liked and didn’t like about training, just like you would in a club environment. I knew the system, the techniques and the personalities. It was Club England, which is exactly what Clive had been keen on achieving. There’s no question that he did that. We were all part of a club that felt very familiar and were all very confident.’

  One of the criticisms that had been levelled at the squad, particularly on their tour Down Under in the summer, had been that a number of key players might be too old to endure the rigours of the World Cup and that they had perhaps peaked too early in the year. ‘Dad’s Army’ became the watchword for England’s detractors and, on paper, they may have had a point. By the time the tournament kicked off, Martin Johnson would be thirty-three, Neil Back thirty-four and Jason Leonard thirty-five. Dorian West was thirty-six. Richard Hill, Lawrence Dallaglio, Will Greenwood, Mike Catt and Matt Dawson were also all in their thirties.

  ‘That always makes me laugh,’ Dave Reddin said of the ‘Dad’s Army’ moniker. ‘There are many examples of athletes over-performing in their thirties. I would back our fitness against anybody. One argument is that as you get older, there is more potential to develop certain aspects of fitness, like strength levels.’

  ‘Too old?’ Back had asked when questioned on the Australian leg of the summer tour. ‘You’re either good enough or you’re not. If people say you’re not good enough, then fair enough. But too old? That doesn’t mean anything.’

  In 1999 Reddin came into possession of fitness reports from the All Blacks camp. ‘I put the figures up on a screen for the England players. Jaws dropped. No way. I knew we were miles behind. So we gave them the most uncomfortable eighteen months of their lives. It was a constant source of amusement to me that the Dad’s Army tag kept on being levelled at us in Australia. I knew that our guys were an incredible group in terms of their work ethic, their need to achieve, their will to win. They knew they were better than anyone else in every single area because they had worked consistently well every single day.’

  Woodward thought little of the ‘old timers’ jibes. He had deliberately worked to build a squad full of experienced players who knew how to win Test matches. His attitude was similar to Neil Back’s – if the player could perform to the standards that he demanded, age had nothing to do with it. And he refused to countenance any discussion about his older players retiring after the World Cup. The suggestion that the tournament might be some kind of send-off for the senior players might detract attention and focus away from the job in hand, and he was adamant that this would not be allowed to happen. ‘If any player thinks he’s going to the World Cup as his swansong, I don’t want him,’ said Woodward at Pennyhill Park. ‘No bullshit, I expect Martin Johnson to captain the team in the Six Nations in February. And if he’s not, it will because I’ve made that decision in February. Now’s not the time to say he’s retiring because I don’t want him going through this World Cup with the wrong mindset. The same with Backy and the other older guys. I expect to see them playing for England in February.’

  While the players may have scoffed at the Dad’s Army jokes and Reddin and Woodward publicly decried it, Reddin was nevertheless acutely aware of the age and career stage of each member of the squad and he tailored their training programmes accordingly. ‘Organisation skills were better with the older group so we have to be far more precise in the way we do things with the younger men who have never known anything other than professional rugby,’ he said in an interview in 2004. ‘But we can be more adventurous on the technical side. Weight training, for instance. A lot of the younger guys have grown up with that so they have a better technique but their training volume is less. The training background you accumulate over the years gives you a tolerance to work at the highest level... You have to be careful how often and how heavy you load the young players so that they don’t get over-fatigued. But you could probably hit Jason Robinson with anything and he’ll be fine – he, though, has more than a decade of work behind him.

  ‘We work on the Olympic lifts, which are excellent ways of developing power, but I would never have tried to teach someone like Martin Johnson how to do a snatch. His body had become fairly battered towards the end and it would have been a pointless exercise; he would have become frustrated.

  ‘Take a prop like Matt Stevens; very powerful, very quick, learns lifts very well. He has physical attributes which Jason Leonard never had but he needs the toughnes
s, the attitude to hard work that Jason had.’

  The programmes were all designed with a single purpose: for the team to be as physically fit and strong as possible, but also fresh for the rigours of a Test match tournament. It was all about peaking at the right time.

  ‘There was a lot more notice taken of the players’ vibes than in the previous World Cup campaign,’ said Matt Dawson. ‘As a result the players were more honest with themselves and the management over injuries. If I said, “my legs are fucked” nobody doubted that.’

  ‘By the time we get to Australia,’ said Woodward at Pennyhill Park, ‘the amount of coaching we want to do is minimal. The heavy work will be done here. We want the load to be light in Australia, precise, and the players to be fresh in body and mind.’

  Lorries loaded with ice would make regular drops at the hotel. Whenever the players ran, lifted weights or took part in an arduous training session, they would tear thousands of microfibres in their muscles. This is perfectly normal and part of increasing muscle size and strength as the muscles repair and regrow in the aftermath. By plunging into large bins of icy water after training, the microscopic bleeding in the players’ muscles is halted; when they emerge, blood rushes back into their muscles and aids recovery, which reduces stiffness, pain and inflammation. This then allows the players to increase their capacity to train at maximum intensity a short time later. Submersion for several minutes in the ice baths is a painful process for the players, even in the sweltering temperatures that baked England that summer, but the benefits of doing so were enormous. The practice has been developed with more sophistication using cryotherapy chambers, particularly in the Olympic training facility in Spala, Poland, where athletes spend time in chambers with the air temperature cooled with liquid nitrogen to around -166·F (-100·C). England had a more prosaic approach with the ice baths, but the effects were the same.