Woody to the rescue
20 Mar 2006
England are hoping to lure Clive Woodward back as coach after losing their third Six Nations match of the season.
The Poms, who have been in free fall since winning the World Cup, seem to have forgotten how Woody himself struggled after the tournament.
England lost three of their eight post-World Cup Tests under Woody, with their wins coming against Italy, Scotland and Wales. They lost to Ireland, France, New Zealand (twice) and Australia.
In Woody’s last three Tests, the Poms conceded 123 points and scored just 30. He then coached the Lions on their tour to New Zealand and lost the series 3-0.
According to the Daily Mail, Woody heads the RFU’s wishlist of replacements for beleaguered coach Andy Robinson. The RFU has drawn up a new management structure for the world champions with Woody at the top.
But while Woodward is being tipped for a return, another possible candidate, Newcastle boss Rob Andrew, has ruled himself out of the running.
“I can categorically say I will not be putting my hat in the ring,” Andrew told the Mail. “It’s not something I have ever coveted and it’s not a position I am interested in taking up at this point in time. I am loyal to Newcastle and they have been fabulous to me. I feel that is where my job is and where my responsibility lies. We have a plan at Newcastle for the next five or six years and I do not wish to turn my back on that plan.”
29 Comments
20 Mar 2006, 15:29 pm
Seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel..
But it would be good to beat the Soap Dodgers with him at the helm…
20 Mar 2006, 15:31 pm
stan ek het nog nie n vuiler nasie tee gekom in my lewe as die pommies nie.Tot ons squatters sonder water en krag lewe skoner.
20 Mar 2006, 15:33 pm
maar dis mos hoekom hulle kougom en deoderant uitgevind het….
20 Mar 2006, 15:33 pm
bliksem, i heard the same thing and witnessed it myself as well. met this woman while working for a sales co in CT, her house was so filthy it made me wanna puke. Pommie she was!!!
20 Mar 2006, 15:34 pm
thanks wpw.die kakste is dan kom die girls nog en probeer met n ou n gesprek aankoop.
20 Mar 2006, 15:41 pm
Miss Mary rotten crotch… sweaty Betty and juicy Lucy.
Hulle laat die skurfste ding van die dokke na n kompulsiewe higieniese eksperiment lyk!
20 Mar 2006, 15:44 pm
Stan vandag is Steak en ******* day.Dis n official dong.
20 Mar 2006, 15:48 pm
The Limeys are the dirtiest nation alive. They inveneted the term B.O
Vieslick is the word that comes to mind.
20 Mar 2006, 16:06 pm
What has personal hygiene got to do with Rugby? Hope the Boks can get it together to put 2 in a row over the Poms at Twickenham later this year. There for the taking …
20 Mar 2006, 16:10 pm
given woodward is the only coach to have had any modicum of success with england, well ever – its no surprise they want him back. funny how time can fade memories.
engalnds problem is not with their coaching, but the poor quality of their league and a distinct lack of decent players. they have no one in their backline who’d come close to challenging for a world 15 spot. i dont think i’d pick any of their forwards either to be honest.
20 Mar 2006, 16:11 pm
Seems the Poms are playing the Aussies in back to back tests in Oz in June … man, they’re going to get pounded.
It’s going to be a bad year for them:
lose to Scotland
beat Italy
lose to Ireland
beat Wales
lose to France
lose to Australia
lose to Australia
run close by Argentina
lose to Boks
lose to Boks
Phew! Annus Horribilis or something like that 30% win ratio at best … world champions? Ag shame.
20 Mar 2006, 16:33 pm
Dame Clive will not come back as that large ego couldn’t stand losing and is why he left the job to start with.
20 Mar 2006, 17:35 pm
Why don’t they get Tony Blair, he seems to have the answer to everything, and if all goes to ****, he can then declare war on the world.
20 Mar 2006, 17:36 pm
England are the only ones who really care about this ranking system, nobody else really cares, funny that, now they don’t even want to have anything to do with the ranking system.
20 Mar 2006, 18:43 pm
LOL,rbing back Woodward after they praised Andy Robinson for months about how he will be the perfect replacement and he is like the greatest coach in the whole world ever, the British made Andy Robinson sound like gods gift to rugby, but hes been found out!
20 Mar 2006, 18:44 pm
CSI: Rugby
comment 13 should be directed at our allie George W Bush … Tony is just one of his back room boy’s
20 Mar 2006, 19:10 pm
Munkibooi – and name me one bok that would make a World XV backline? Not one, Habana maybe but to be frank the wonder kid of Intercepts is no real match for Sivivatu and Gear from New Zealand on current form. Argue all you want but look at form first then listen to the heart!
As South Africans we are quick to judge other nations idiosyncracies (Keo a spell checker would be good). But we fail to notice our own failings and reflect upon those. Both as fans and players we miss the obvious. We have blind faith that in some way god made the Bok player different from the rest, harder, tougher, more durable phyiscally. We play the altitude card on the highveld and utilise Naas’s recipe for Bull Bull success, run em raggard with kicks and you will prevail. The problem with such a mentality is it’s still stuck in the 80′s alongside Naas!
For the Boks to prevail moving forward, we need to accept criticism, develop new strategies, whilst incorporating our strengths – super human strength and the Highveld. Note we don’t travel well with either of these tactics and adapt accordingly. We need to develop tactics that involve passing the ball to the wings, Habana is not only an intercept player. We need to kick possession when it suits our game plan not everytime we get the ball! We need a flyhalf who can look up vs catch and kick! Centers who can run lines, but most importantly if they do straighten up, offload in the contact quickly! Forwards – it’s simple – set pieces need to function – not too much issue here. But with all due respect, Naas could step Schalk Britz and that’s a key point! Play as a forward, commit to the breakdown, get into the rolling maul, tackle like you mean it and every now and again run at them. Schalk Burger in every test he’s played has lost possession when he’s been tackled. That’s a real same – he should offload or be better supported it’s as simple as that. Fat props do not make the best defenders on the wings too!
Change is a word synonomous with South African Politics and Culture, a position we should be proud of! If you cannot accept change to our game on the scale we demand, then think back to Naas’s Glory days and remember that, for all of his great kicking ability the 2 South African backs who will forever be immortalised in Rugby annuls – are Gerber and Du Plessis – try scoring machines that epitomised South African running rugby. Alas a concept we seem to have forgotten. We don’t score tries, except intercepts. That’s something we can’t win a world cup without!
20 Mar 2006, 23:07 pm
Old Woody is nobody’s fool. He learnt a lot from the disasterous Lions’s tour as well as in the soccer environment. Don’t underestimate the Poms. They would love to stick it to the Frogs on their home ground next year.
21 Mar 2006, 03:48 am
agree with lanh giel
woody certainly has a good rugby brain in that ugly head of his, and they would love nothing more than to beat the frogs, however i dont recall a time when he has a produced a decent, let alone a dominant side without jony wilkonson. wilkonsons right boot has always been woddwards bread and butter in rugby, and as long as wilkonson is out of the picture, so too is woody.
21 Mar 2006, 06:38 am
Thought StMickey would have put up his hand…where is the poor bugger?
21 Mar 2006, 09:07 am
**** WEEPEE did you just move to England? cause your as moody as they are LMFAO.
Weepee this entire intercept thing is getting old. Surly it cant be down to luck, if you do it game in game out. It works and it works well.
You cant really say anything about Habana on form at the moment, hes touched the ball mabey twice this season.
Dont be so fast to shoot down SA players. In the last two seasons they have been a match for anyone in the world on form. Think about it the only games they have lost have been the ones where they dident implement there game plan properly.
21 Mar 2006, 09:09 am
Lang Giel, yeah and they did a fantastic job of that last week lol.
Sorry but you wont just win a world cup if you make a change this late.
Look how long England dominated rugby prior to the last world cup. they were very settled.
Now they have acoach that goes on about how well they played against Scotland even if they lost.
21 Mar 2006, 09:56 am
Dont underestimate the poms. We are yet to beat them at Twickers for some time now.
There willo be a coaching shake up for sure, it wont be woody but it might be Brian Ashton from Bath.
Anybody who says that their local league is poor, simply does not know what they are talking about.
21 Mar 2006, 11:05 am
wls. Wot are you talking about.
If you dont keep evolving your game you will never have the competitive edge over the opposition. as a kiwi is so frustrating when we take the game to a new level and rest of the world catch up by world cup team. Yes England were dominant before the world cup but that was because Clive analysed the hell out of them and continued to tweak the well oiled england machine until he had it right. if they had ‘settled’ on a game plan this far out from the last world cup they woudl have lost mate.
Dominance and change are complementary
21 Mar 2006, 11:45 am
WLS – boet, I think you’ve got to take the blindfold off and look at the facts. If Habana had missed some of these intercepts, was that 5 or 7 points to the opposition? Don’t get me wrong, Brian Habana is a serious talent but we have to play him that way. His speed is a major factor but we don’t pass to him? Why because our Centers are too busy sticking it up their jersey’s and running into the tackle! Wales and even Scotland spread the ball to the wings better than we do! Oops forgot, that’s not part of the plan, it’s forwards, to Centers, recycle and kick away possession.
Obviously I’ve got it all wrong and don’t have a clue – hence the SA S14 sides are caning their opposition at home and away – incl. the Bulls! Wake up, take a deep breath of reality and face the facts – unless Jake starts playmakers and people capable of offloading the route 1 Rugby we’ve displayed of late will leave us getting our arses kicked on tour and with close victories on the Highveld!
21 Mar 2006, 13:33 pm
Dude lets agree to disagree because i dont think its that bad.
And i actually dont even make the comparrison with the BOKS nad our Super14 sides because as the stats over the last two years have proved, they under perform, in the Super14, yet perform on the International stage? I agree with you on game breakers, But surly if White has a game plan that works for him they should stick to it?
If the Bulls stick 100% to there game plan they win?
Rugby in NH is very different from SH, the world cup is in the NH and its going to be the very same type of game plan England used so well in 2003 that will win it. Not the out and out running style that is used in super14.
21 Mar 2006, 13:37 pm
sorry point im making wether people agree or disagree is. For the last two seasons everyone has gone on about how KAK we were and how much **** we are in. Yet come the international season we do very well (and 70% win ratio is very good considering who we play) its not realistic to start believeing we are going to beat everyone we play. Not considering the total shambles SA rugby is really in.
Its not like NZ or AUS, where they have settled managment. Look what JW said the other night.
Think of Graham Henry, the guy watches super 14 NZ sides win everything and thinks “hmm look what i have to work with here”
JW on the other hand has to watch them lose week in and week out and has to think the same thing.
Yet he is just as succesful as Graham Henry in his own right.
22 Mar 2006, 09:36 am
England to beat the boks at twickenham. The Boks are just as bad on the road as the wallabies are.
22 Mar 2006, 11:22 am
Nothing can save dem pom’s. sa=2 eng=6 ozzie=4 Roll on end of year tour.We will see how Oz and dem pom’s go in June.
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