Fitz: All in the mind for England

'If you look at the successful All Black teams I was in, they all had older heads in the team. The average age of the All Blacks now is, I think, 26 and though they will develop into a very good team, they're currently losing games .

'England have a huge amount of talent. The strength in depth is phenomenal.

'It's like a sleeping giant - when somebody grabs hold of it and develops it then it will be quite scary.'

'Success in rugby is cyclical, no one team is going to dominate for a long period and sides will be judged on their World Cup performances.

'But I think England are definitely up there with the best Southern Hemisphere teams at the moment. They've beaten South Africa and Australia, so you have to put them up there.'

Fitzpatrick, in London for the star-studded World Sports Awards at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow night, is well placed to comment on player development in his role as manager of the New Zealand Under-21s.

Although he was quick to praise Woodward's current XV and the potential outside the first team, the hooker who played around 350 first-class club and district games in New Zealand warned that England haven't always been able to build on success.

Their current renaissance has been based on old heads, players who have developed inner hardness, but Fitzpatrick believes that should be evident at an earlier age.

He said: 'In New Zealand, it's a classless game, everyone plays rugby, but over here it's an upper class sport - that's got something to do with it.

'Look at soccer, everyone here plays it and they've got that mental hardness. They don't mind getting their hands dirty.

'In New Zealand, that's what the rugby is like - when the going gets tough is when you enjoy it most. I loved it. The best games I enjoyed were the toughest games, down 10 points with five minutes to go.

'When it gets tough, a lot of guys throw the towel in - we see that in New Zealand, too, but there, those guys get weeded out very early.

'When they don't front up they get overtaken by guys who want to front up. The guys who are intimidated struggle to produce it.'

Fitzpatrick, who also does PR work for Coca-Cola and runs his own promotions company, has never backed down from a scrap.

He has been described as one of the game's great leaders, not to mention a master of taking its laws to the limit.

Who, apart from the rugby gods who bestow so much natural talent on New Zealand players, made him like this?

Step forward Graham Henry, saviour of Wales and now entrusted with the Lions.

Fitzpatrick said: 'Graham coached me right through club rugby, he was a great loss to New Zealand and I'm not sure he's got any burning desire to go back there and coach.

'Technically he's great, he has foresight and he's good at developing talent. His man-management style has developed and he gets the best out of his players.

'The main thing, though, is that he's very passionate about winning. He's a typical New Zealander, he hates losing.

'He instilled that winning edge in me. Winning is everything was what he taught us and, for me, it is.'

Fitzpatrick believes Henry is doing a tremendous job with Wales, dragging a nation up by its boot straps almost, but can' t help feeling his old boss is ham-strung.

Picking up on Henry's complaint that Wales will never develop unless given more games against Southern Hemisphere teams, Fitzpatrick believes you can extend the argument to all the top European teams - and he's come up with a solution.

'I would like to see the Six Nations globalised, the Southern Hemisphere playing the Northern every other year,' he said. 'A world Six Nations championship, home and away. In terms of globalising the game and getting Europeans to watch us, it would be great.

'You could have two or three southern teams playing three northern teams in a home and away series - and have a final every other year.

'You could have the Tri-Nations every other year alternating with the traditional Six Nations to keep everyone happy.'

England, France and one other from the gang of six squaring up to the All Blacks, Australia and South Africa every other season. Now that would breed mental toughness.