- Martin must look to the 2003 team for coaches. Those are the people that
he knows and trusts
- He will need a mentor urgently. Eddie Jones could be the right man for
the role in the short term
-Relationship with Andrew would be a forced marriage. He must answer only
to Francis Baron
-Martin Johnson must be given carte blanche to do whatever he thinks is
right
Here is my first word of advice for Martin Johnson. Coach. Put on your
tracksuit and get out on to the training field. Get your hands dirty and
coach. Here is my second word of advice, as Johnson prepares to sign to
become England’s team manager. Don’t. Sign by all means for the top job, but
don’t accept the title of manager. That would be completely wrong and if he
does accept it, I would fear greatly for him.
Worrying about a job title might sound like a semantic, but I assure you that
it is not. If I were Martin, I would demand the title of head coach. This
reflects the difference between managing and true, out-and-out leadership,
and it is a vital difference. He must be a leader and a visionary. He must
lead England in every single area of elite preparation. I’d hate to think
that he intends to bring in new people and simply “manage” them.
He must also be an extremist. He must not make a single compromise. He must
take risks, he must have that vision, he must be someone that other people
cannot predict. He must dictate matters. There are more than enough yes-men
at Twickenham already. He must make people just a little scared of him.
Back to the tracksuit. If he stands on the touchline “managing” others, and if
he simply manages the process instead of leading it, he will fail badly. If
he simply stands there watching and snarling, he will soon be unpicked by
everybody. He will cause no loss of sleep to Warren Gatland and Graham
Henry, just as I would have slept soundly if Australia had suddenly made
John Eales their manager, or New Zealand had appointed Tana Umaga.
And Martin should also look at Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho. However big
and dominant and even aloof they seem to be, they are also serious tracksuit
coaches. Simply being Johnno is not enough. If he does not take an active
part, he will find it very hard to gain the respect of the players in his
new role.
Naturally, he will employ other coaches, and I will come shortly to the fact
that almost certainly, they cannot be Brian Ashton or Jake White. When I was
head coach I employed the likes of Andy Robinson and Phil Larder and
delegated much of the coaching to them – but not all of it. I was in charge
of how we were going to play and I had a clearly-defined coaching role.
Every meeting and every session was led by me.
He does not have to coach every aspect. He can choose an area – perhaps
lineout, or the contact area; anywhere where he is comfortable. What he must
definitely grasp is that natural talent, of which he has so much, is simply
not enough. He has to work very, very hard indeed to develop his talents as
head coach or lead coach.
He also has to grasp what elite performance is, and how far England rugby has
fallen behind not only most of the top six rugby nations, but also other
British sports. He should travel the sporting world, and he can make a start
with two of our best Olympic sports, which I have seen from close up in my
role with the British Olympic Association.
Cycling and sailing in this country are a total inspiration. The attention to
detail alone is sensational, and yet four years ago, England rugby was
arguably ahead of both. You had only to watch our cyclists win such glory
last week to appreciate which sport is now in the lead. Both cycling and
sailing have extremist leadership at many levels.
Even when he takes these examples on board, coaching will not come easy. It is
so much harder at elite level than anyone could believe. If you have done it
on a day-to-day basis or if you are at least a trained teacher, it is still
hard. Martin has neither of these advantages. He will need someone to mentor
him as a matter of urgency. Someone like Eddie Jones would be perfect for
any aspiring national head coach.
There is no doubt that all of this constitutes the greatest challenge of
Martin’s career. It is one in which he must succeed. People will be
fascinated to see who he brings in as coaches. The philosophy is so
critical. He has to get in quality coaches but more important, they have to
be people that he likes and respects. These are very easy words to use but
soon, Martin will be travelling the world with these guys, they will be
spending lots of time together – and also, as soon as they take a couple of
defeats and it all kicks off in the media, they will be under the most
severe pressure. That is when you need people you can trust, rather than
people you have to think about first.
When I took the head coach job in 1997 I inherited a few people in my
structure. They were largely quality people but if I am brutally honest,
they were not people I would have chosen, so they had to go. It was very
difficult. But I brought in Andy Robinson, for example, who was not only a
great coach but also a great mate. We had always had fun with Bath and
England Under21. Martin must find those kind of people, people he enjoys
being with.
Admittedly, it took two years to put together my ideal team, though I started
with no office, phone or blueprint. Martin does not have two years. He has
to go in tough, he has to get RFU chief executive Francis Baron to pay
people’s contracts up, and he has to work with people he respects. If that
means sacking medical people, physios, analysts, the lot, then it has to be
done. Both the last two coaches, Robinson and Ashton, made it impossible for
themselves by not going in hard at the start, and they have paid the price.
Both would now do things very differently.
Frankly, if Martin keeps Ashton under him or goes for White, it would smack of
a compromise. It could be dangerous. I cannot imagine either Jake or Brian
sitting down having a few beers with Martin and chewing the fat all night.
So where does he go? Easy - to the 2003 World Cup team. Those are the people
he knows and can trust. They are special people who operated in a fantastic
environment.
It would be a mistake thinking he has to being in a massively experienced
coach just because he is not experienced. I would look at Mike Catt and Neil
Back and Lawrence Dallaglio for definite. They have so much knowledge and
experience.
Graham Rowntree, who is already in the structure, would also be brilliant.
Will Greenwood will make a great coach, and it is a shame that he may be too
tied up with media work to be available. Great guys, great company, proven
winners.
Two more key points. First, unless there is a brilliant reason to the
contrary, I would chose only English coaches. I only had one nonEnglish
coach in Sherylle Calder, our brilliant visual coach,. She was the only one
of her kind.
Second, I would ask Martin to remember the best way to coach a team is to
coach individuals. We used to say to players that we wanted to make them the
best in their position in the world and then worked out how to go about it.
Coaches make the mistake of always putting the team first. Take James
Haskell, tell him he is going to be the best No 8 in the world and work out
what that would look like. What does it entail in terms of his benchmarks,
conditioning, skills and so on? If you can develop six or seven players who
are the best in the world, then your team is going to win matches.
And then, when you have your team in place, when you have around you a
talented group who enjoy each others company (and never in a cosy way -
Martin never allowed cosiness as a captain) what is the next step? Easy.
Circle the wagons. You make it a complete closed shop, into which no
intruders are allowed. You generate an aura, an unrelieved fascination in
outsiders with what you are doing.
There are still dangers. He must understand the politics. I cannot see where
at Twickenham his close allies will be. Any relationship between Martin and
Rob Andrew, the elite director, will be a forced marriage and there has in
the past been no love lost between Martin and Baron.
Martin must categorically demand that he reports only to Baron, as I did. Any
line of communication apart from that would be an utter nonsense. But at a
time when Martin needs support, how supportive will Andrew be given the
disgraceful handling of poor Ashton of late, and given that Andrew has
appointed him twice already?
Andrew has never coached or managed Test teams, and he was voted by my
coaching team in 2003, when he was still at Newcastle, as the worst director
of rugby, and by some margin. He and his teams seemed ill-prepared and
boring and he was, to me, a million miles away from the profile of a
successful coach, let alone an international coach. Last week as he tried to
placate all his masters at Twickenham he seemed, as this newspaper observed,
a “glorified messenger”. What use will that be to Martin?
Baron was outstanding for me, until we won the World Cup in 2003. Then he
seemed to think it was all easy. He could not deal with change on the scale
that I was talking about, change that we needed if we were going to retain
our No 1 ranking. Instead he dedicated himself to his South Stand rebuilding
project. Maybe the team will now be a priority again.
But at least I always had an ally on the management board in Fran Cotton,
whose reassuring presence allowed me to be radical. I am hoping for Martin’s
sake that with Cotton gone, Peter Wheeler - an old mentor of Martin - can
take up this role.
This is also why Martin must go in with total clarity and not sign until all
his demands are met. Sometimes in business, people who are brand new to a
role in a different environment, go in apologetically. He cannot. He must
not listen to too many people. He must dictate. As I say, there are enough
yes-men at Twickenham already.
We have wasted two years here – arguably, five years. Two years ago, as I
wrote in this paper, I sat in my interview for the post of elite rugby
director with four Twickenham grandees and outlined my plans. The team would
have been headed up by none other than Martin Johnson. I would have knocked
Martin’s door down – for head coach potential you could not imagine anyone
better. He is still, for me, unquestionably the man.
But when you have to do more than manage, when you have to coach and prepare,
when you have to select and lead a team and a management structure, it is a
world apart. He can be a great head coach and an inspiration. But it will be
far from plain sailing.
It can happen. England have so much rising talent, we can definitely have a
great era under him and if things go really well, we can win the 2011 World
Cup. I always respected Martin because of the quality of his actions. He was
never a yes-man, and when he questioned me there was always a reason.
How much of an extremist can he be? One of my goals was to have the whole of
Twickenham on its feet, going crazy, by achieving something almost more than
just winning. He has to find a way to thrill them, to excite them. What he
cannot do is turn England into Leicester mark II and play the way that
Leicester played. He needs to win games but he probably has a small window
early on when he can test his extremism. Perhaps in an early game he can
send out a young team of brilliant players to attack from all points.
Martin, I envy you. I remembered this week how I felt when I was starting out
in 1997. It is a magnificent opportunity for you to do something very
special, not only for rugby, but for British sport. Get the right people in,
set out now so that you never look back in the future with regrets. Don’t
give in to people complaining about budgets and people who make excuses.
Throw the kitchen sink at it. Enjoy the journey.
Flies in the ointment
Nick Cain
- MARTIN Johnson is already facing his first setback with the news that Pat
Howard, his former Leicester teammate, has apparently ruled himself out of
any position in a new England coaching set-up. Howard, now back in
Australia, where he had been working with the ARFU, told the Sunday Times:
‘I have said that I will think about it but, for the same reasons that I am
not in for the Ireland head coach job, I am not really an option for the
English either. It’s a very tough decision to make, but having a very young
family and made the decision to come back to Australia, it’s highly unlikely’
- It also emerged yesterday that Shaun Edwards, the influential Wasps coach
currently working with Warren Gatland’s Wales, was likely to decline any
offer from Johnson
- The former England captain has entered into contract talks with the RFU, but
his ability to work with chief executive Francis Baron could be a stumbling
block. The pair fi rst clashed during the England player strike in the autumn
of 2000, when Johnson led the three-player delegation (with Lawrence
Dallaglio and Matt Dawson) which refused to budge in a deadlock with a
Baron-led RFU committee over match fees. When this came to a head in the
week between international fi xtures against Australia and Argentina, the RFU
eventually paid out a further £50,000 to settle the dispute. Johnson accused
the RFU of being ‘old-fashioned, patronising and arrogant’, adding, ‘it’s
not just an issue about money. It’s the principle, the way the RFU have
handled the situation - they are affecting the guys’ livelihoods on a matter
of principle’
- Johnson also alluded to his difficulties with Baron in his bestselling
autobiography: ‘I walked out of negotiations one morning and saw a player’s
car parked next to Francis Baron’s. One drove a second hand Ford Mondeo -
the other an Aston Martin with a personalized number plate. Guess who had
the Aston? Baron’s negotiating stance was a major issue. Someone told us he
was a tough guy who liked to play hard ball - he appeared unwilling to
compromise and you have to ask why?’
10 steps to get back to winning ways
Woodward’s blueprint for Martin Johnson
1 Wear the tracksuit. Do not be an offfield manager. Lead England in
everything, including onfield coaching
2 Manage? No! Lead management means looking after people and assets
and recycling the old process. To lead is to strike boldly into a new
future. You should be called Head Coach and be extreme
3 Budgets - don’t compromise in anything you do, don’t let people
prevent you putting what you deem essentials into place, by pleading poverty
4 Technical friendships - pack your team with talented people but
people whom you like, respect, can have fun with and rely upon. Where better
to look than the 2003 World Cup winning squad?
5 Beware the energy sappers. To sap means to wear down, exhaust. Each
team has them. Even one in a team will sap you and you will fail. They can
even be world-class players. Get rid of them
6 Beware the parasites - 95% of RFU officials are supportive but others
can be obstructive. Identify the parasite early - they may try to confuse
you by not wearing a blazer on match days
7 Beware the termites. Often they are old internationals used to
coming second, and jealous of any winning structure. One ex-international
termite is already attacking you even before contracts are signed
Uphold the energisers - the 2003 team was made up of energisers 100%. No
sappers anywhere - the dictionary describes energisers as fire, force and
intensity
9 Report only to the RFU chief executive, extricate yourself from
Twickenham’s yes-men and the messenger boys
10 Wow factor. Bring the Twickenham crowd to their feet. Why not
choose a bunch of attacking geniuses for your fi rst home game, to set out
your stall? Here are the backs, hardly a tackler amongst them but so much
talent: Nick Abendanon, James Simpson-Daniel, Mathew Tait, Shane Geraghty,
Dave Strettle, Danny Cipriani, Harry Ellis
