White Gold

by Peter Burns

  ‘The main thrust of his programme is to get you to go absolutely flat out from the outset,’ said Will Greenwood of Reddin’s training. ‘He wants you on your knees by the end. He wants you to leave nothing on the pitch when you walk off it.’ By plunging the players in the ice baths after such training sessions, Reddin improved recovery rates so that the coaches could squeeze in more training, strength and fitness sessions per day than they otherwise would have been able to.

  The player who worked harder than any other, unsurprisingly, was Jonny Wilkinson. ‘He had always impressed us as a player but this was the first time we had spent such a long time training together and it was a real eye-opener,’ said Richard Hill. ‘Everybody knows he is meticulous with his practice routines, but it was even more impressive when you saw it first-hand. As for his fitness levels, they were just as mind-blowing, particularly in the running exercises. I thought I worked hard but Jonny pushed himself to the very limit. He was out on his own. There was one exercise where you had to run as far as you could in a minute, sit down for a short break, then repeat the exercise twice more. Jonny would be way off in the distance somewhere. Nobody else got near him.’

  As Pennyhill Park basked in the sunshine, the coaches felt that the heatwave was a blessing for their preparation as they believed that their games would be played in sweltering heat – little did they know at the time that the weather that would greet them in Australia would be dreadful – but, typical of Woodward’s regime, they had considered every aspect of the conditions they would face. ‘We are increasing our knowledge about hydration,’ said Woodward at the time, ‘about how to produce peak performance in heat and how to plan rest. But we’re also talking about the effects of dew. Our games begin at 8 p.m. and dew will be coming down hard. The fields may be quite wet by then.’

  At this stage the patterns of play that the team practised out on the Pennyhill Park pitch were like second nature. ‘All the repetition in training and our collective experience on the pitch means that instinct takes care of us,’ said Wilkinson. ‘We know our jobs and our roles and when it doesn’t quite go as expected, we just alter and shift a little. We hang in the game because we have a structure for our game-breakers to come in when the time is right. It feels as though we are permanently moving forward and waiting. The team performance becomes a springboard from which any player can launch at any time. In defence, the support is like a white wall round each player; in attack, it is the decoy runners, the unselfish options. It means that week in, week out, we’re seeing the best of each other.’

  As Daniel Coyle discusses in his book, The Talent Code, every human skill is enabled by chains of nerve fibres carrying tiny electrical impulses to the brain. Neurological scientists have discovered a neural insulator, called myelin, which some consider to be the holy grail of acquiring skill. ‘Myelin’s vital role,’ writes Coyle, ‘is to wrap those nerve fibres the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out. When we fire our circuits in the right way – when we practise swinging a bat or playing a note – our myelin responds by wrapping layers of insulation around that neural circuit, each new layer adding a bit more skill and speed. The thicker the myelin gets, the better it insulates, and the faster and more accurate our movements and thoughts become... Skill is a cellular insulation that wraps neural circuits and that grows in response to certain signals. The more time and energy you put into the right kind of practice, the more skill you get, or, to put it a slightly different way, the more myelin you earn.’

  While Wilkinson and other world-class goal-kickers have acquired their phenomenal skill levels through thousands of hours of quality practice, the England squad as a whole had acquired knowledge of how to react and perform in hundreds of different scenarios around a rugby pitch – so much so that in certain areas of the pitch or at certain times in a match, they would almost go into autopilot so well did they know the pattern of play that was required of them.

  Take the ‘zig-zag’ play as an example – a pattern designed to move Wilkinson into a position to score a drop-goal, which they had first developed after the 2000 tour to South Africa. From a line-out they would take the ball up in midfield and the scrum-half would then pass short balls to the forwards, or instruct them to pick-and-go around the fringes until they were close enough to the posts to make the drop-goal attempt as straightforward as possible for their fly-half. When the play was called – or any other similarly well-rehearsed pattern was called – the players knew exactly what to do, where to run, how to hit, everything. They had practised it so many times, literally hundreds of repetitions, that it was almost second nature. The hours of practice that they put in ‘earned’ them myelin, as Coyle would put it, so that they ran like clockwork in their precision and accuracy. It was the result of hundreds of hours of hard work and the consistency of Woodward’s selection over much of his six-year period in charge – the team had built up their experience and skill together and functioned as a single unit that understood one another perfectly.

  By sticking with experienced players familiar with each other’s game, when play broke down and became unstructured – from a turnover, a kick gathered in space, a break through the defensive line – creating or supporting a quick change in broken play had become second nature. The beauty of what Woodward had created was that it wasn’t just the first-choice starting players who had this instinctive understanding – the enlarged squad had spent so much time together, had had their play and training broken down and analysed by Tony Biscombe, the coaches and the other back-room experts so often, and the feedback delivered to them on such a regular and consistent basis, that they all knew what was required of them. Details like the black book meant that every player in the squad knew what was expected of them – there were no elite cliques that knew more about the way England played than anyone else, no rookie to the set-up who felt unsure of his role. It was a testament to Woodward’s planning and forethought, and it had all been born out of the trauma of the 1999 World Cup. ‘A lesson from 1999 was that we weren’t confident enough to use our squad fully,’ said Woodward at Pennyhill Park. ‘Since then, however, we have been able to improve our strength in depth immeasurably. Looking back, we hadn’t tested ourselves enough mentally, put ourselves on the line enough, in the build-up four years ago. That had to change.’

  But this club-like approach to selection, where everyone had been working closely together for years, also meant that when a player was dropped, it was a painful experience for the entire group, not just the individual. ‘It is the toughest part of the job,’ said Woodward at the time, ‘when I have to tell them they’re not good enough to play for England any more.’

  It was a dilemma that Woodward would have to face in the coming weeks. While he was not dropping the players for ever, he had to make his choice on the thirty players that he would take to the World Cup. For a man who valued loyalty as highly as any other quality, it would be heart-wrenching to dash the dreams of a host of players who had served him faithfully for many years.

  But before he and his fellow coaches had those decisions to make, there were three Tests to be played. The first of these was against Wales at the Millennium Stadium; another game, another historic milestone. England won at a canter against a full-strength Wales side and the victory brought England level with their old rivals in terms of the number of games won between them, the dominance of the men in white finally matching that enjoyed during the halcyon days of Gareth and J.J., J.P.R., Gerald, Phil Bennett and Barry John, the King, when the Dragon lorded it over the world.

  What was most remarkable about this victory, away from home, was that it was achieved by a second-string England side. They missed seven shots at goal and still emerged with a 43–9 scoreline. Those on the fringes of the squad were determined to give Woodward the mother of all headaches as to who would fill the final places in the World Cup squad.

  Next they were off to
France, to the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, a fortress for French rugby where Les Bleus had never been defeated.

  Again Woodward fielded his second string. ‘Bernard Laporte and I arranged two England versus France matches before the World Cup because I felt the need for really strong warm-up opposition,’ said Woodward. ‘As part of this gentleman’s agreement, I fielded my second team in the away leg and Bernard put out his second side at Twickenham a week later.’

  Up against France’s strongest selection, England’s understudies almost achieved what had seemed impossible. In the bear pit of the Vélodrome, they lost by a single point, 17–16. England’s run of consecutive wins had been halted at fourteen and while Woodward and his coaching crew moaned about the loss, seemingly oblivious to the fact that their second XV had almost beaten the French first XV, the French did a lap of honour – apparently equally oblivious to the evidence just presented.

  The game was notable for the fact that it saw the introduction of the new skintight shirts. As Nike was the kit supplier to France and South Africa as well as England, both sides at the Vélodrome were bedecked in the revolutionary new shirts and all three teams would appear in them at the World Cup.

  ‘The detail is terrific,’ said Dan Luger after the game. ‘It really is hard to hold on to a player in the tackle now. The forwards, for instance, have a looser part on the shirts so they can get a grip in the scrum. Everything is thought through.’

  The return fixture at Twickenham featured a role reversal – England’s firsts versus France’s seconds. The gap in class was palpable as England romped to a 45–14 victory.

  Throughout the three fixtures, players who had served England and Woodward with great pride and towering performances throughout much of his six-year reign were now shifting nervously, unsure whether they would make the cut for Australia. Only thirty could go. Every player in the wider squad knew that there would be some big-name casualties – they just had to pray that they would not be among them.

  In the event it was Simon Shaw, Graham Rowntree, Austin Healey and James Simpson-Daniel who were the biggest of the names to miss out. All except Simpson-Daniel were triumphant Lions and all had been key figures in some of England’s most momentous victories during Woodward’s tenure. There is no doubt that each of them would have walked into just about every other Test side on the planet. But they were surplus to requirements for now – only injury or some other twist of fate could see them called out to Australia as a replacement.

  On the flip side, there were some players counting their lucky stars. Iain Balshaw’s form had crumbled on the 2001 Lions tour and it had remained in the doldrums for two years. But he had rediscovered his sparkle during the warm-up games and he was in. So too was Mike Catt. After two years out with injury, he had returned to action just in time, and his class had advanced with age and perspective. Martin Corry, who had been a revelation as a late replacement on the 2001 Lions tour, had fallen down the pecking order since then but had shown enough in the preceding months to stake a claim as a valuable utility player who was capable of playing in the second-row or in any of the three back-row positions. His selection cost Shaw his place. ‘He would be in any other international team in the world and not to pick him is the hardest decision I have had to make in my six years as head coach with England,’ said Woodward of Shaw’s omission. ‘I told Simon that there was nothing more he could have done. The same is true of Graham, but I had to make a decision. And they weren’t necessarily the ones I would have made six weeks ago. That’s why I’m delighted we had these warm-up games.’

  In the early years of Woodward’s reign, Austin Healey’s versatility had made him an invaluable member of the squad, but with only thirty players able to travel to Australia, Woodward wanted specialists in the backs rather than utility players. And when measured against the scrum-halves, fly-halves and wingers that were vying with Healey, the Leicester dynamo – who had been struggling with injury that season – was not technically superior, man-on-man, to any of the others.

  ‘I asked for a reason and Clive didn’t really give me one,’ said Healey in Me and My Mouth. ‘He just said he thought it was the best way to go... So I just accepted it, and wished him good luck. “I’m really disappointed,” I said, “because I know we’re going to win it.”’

  Mike Catt, on the other hand, had class and experience and offered a different option at centre to the incumbents, Tindall and Greenwood – even if he too had been battling all season with injury problems.

  ‘I always believed that we would need an experienced team to win a World Cup, especially playing down in Australia,’ said Woodward. ‘So I was very keen to get Catty involved. But my concern was that he was a long way short of physical fitness. I took a decision not to name him in the preliminary World Cup squad, nor in any of the warm-up games. I just believed that at that stage it was best for him to stay at Bath and work non-stop, rather than undergo all the squad sessions with us.

  ‘Catty hadn’t done himself any favours the previous season. He played for Bath when he wasn’t right physically and that showed in his form. What I told him was to take the whole summer off and go away and get in physically great shape. Then he’d have a chance. I told him that he had nothing to prove to me in terms of his playing ability, so he didn’t need to play in those warm-up games. I knew he’d been there and done it.’

  So that was that. The squad was picked. Six years of effort, planning, preparation, perseverance, failure, comebacks and at times glorious, beautiful, magnificent rugby had come to this. Next stop: Australia.

  PART THREE

  ASCENSION

  NINE

  THE ANATOMY OF THE CLIMB

  ‘Show class, have pride, and display character.

  If you do, winning takes care of itself.’

  Paul Bryant

  CLIVE WOODWARD WAS sitting having breakfast in the lobby-level restaurant of the Sheraton Hotel in Perth. He was gazing out of the window at the sparkling water of the Swan River drifting by in the distance, the morning sun dappling its surface and the cityscape stretching out into the distance beyond.

  He paused for a moment to finish his breakfast – an egg-white omelette prepared by the England team’s chef, Dave Campbell, who was now ensconced in the Sheraton’s kitchen. Ever since Jonny Wilkinson had fallen ill with food poisoning in South Africa in 2000, Woodward had decided that no risks could be taken with his players and the food they ate while they were in the England camp. Backed up by an assertion from various sources within the All Blacks camp that their players had had their food tampered with on the eve of the 1995 World Cup final – which they went on to lose to South Africa – Woodward had employed Campbell as the team’s official chef. Ever since his introduction, he had been in charge of the players’ meals while they were at Pennyhill Park and Louise Ramsay had always ensured that Campbell was allowed full access to the kitchens in hotels that the team stayed in while playing away matches. Over the course of several years Campbell had worked with Dave Reddin and nutrition specialist Matt Lovell to develop an optimal menu for the players, which varied depending on the stage of the season.

  It was 7 a.m. and the tables around Woodward were filled by the players, who were tucking into similar omelettes and plates of bananas and fresh fruit, while protein shakes adorned their place settings like large strawberry milkshakes in a burger joint.

  Woodward poured himself a fresh cup of tea from a small white china pot, and as the steaming liquid swirled through a strainer, his thoughts turned to Georgia, England’s first opponents at the World Cup. He had made the decision to field his strongest side for this opening match long before they had departed from Pennyhill Park and nothing had occurred since they had arrived in Perth to alter his thinking.

  ‘The majority of those players have only played once in four months, so it is important that we start strongly,’ said Woodward of his selected team. It was vital that the cobwebs were blown away by the time they played South Africa six days l
ater in what was clearly the key encounter in the pool stage. England’s route through the rest of the World Cup would be made considerably more challenging if they lost that match, just as had been the case when they lost to New Zealand in the 1999 pool.

  ‘It’s a huge match for us,’ said Neil Back of the Georgia game. ‘It’s about us showing the rest of the teams in the tournament what we’re made of and that we mean business. It’s about us being physically ruthless. It’s about us making the world and his wife sit up and take notice. It’s about us laying down a marker about the way we can play rugby. Anything less will give our rivals reason to doubt us, our critics ammunition to fire at us, and the Springboks cause for confidence ahead of next week’s game. I don’t want Georgia crossing our line, I don’t want us coming off the Subiaco Oval at the end of eighty minutes feeling that we underperformed. That has been my message to the team in the build-up.’

  It was quite a statement of intent. The Georgians were never considered a serious threat to England, all the more so when the privations that their squad had to endure were publicly revealed in the build-up to the match. Like many of the tier two and three countries (those outside the top eight to ten IRB ranked sides), their best players plied their trade as professionals for clubs in England and France. It was rumoured that English and French club owners had attempted to keep as many of their foreign Test players from vanishing to the World Cup by offering them two contracts – one if they withdrew from the tournament and one if they did not. The latter was said to be significantly less lucrative. For players hailing from the likes of Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Romania or Georgia, who were often supporting families back at home, it was a dreadful choice. Fulfil your dream of taking part in your sport’s showcase tournament, or accede to your responsibilities as a breadwinner in a short-lived career. It seemed that many of the French-based Georgian players had felt compelled to eke what they could from their professional careers and had withdrawn their availability to the national team.