Moore: Switch to soccer enough to test a Saint

14 April 2012

The British and Irish Lions should take a long hard look at Clive Woodward's appointment as manager for the tour to New Zealand next year. Having toured with the Lions in New Zealand, I know how hard that challenge will be and while I believe Woodward will do a professional job, the situation he has now created will leave an unsuccessful tour open to the allegation that it failed because of conflicts of interest.

Though unfair, such allegations are impossible to refute, and the Lions should not put themselves in that situation.

They must demand, and get, the clearest commitment from Woodward as to the time and energy he will devote to the task in hand. When he was still involved with England, any time he spent on that job had a direct relevance on the Lions project; time spent on soccer would not. Woodward's record with England is outstanding and he put together the longest winning streak of any international team, and that 14-game sequence included a high proportion of wins against southern hemisphere teams.

So why the resignation? The bad defeats suffered in the last four games cannot have helped, but this volte face must have its roots well before last summer's tour to New Zealand and Australia. Lawrence Dallaglio played his heart out on that tour and has now resigned the captaincy which is completely understandable because he has nothing left to prove to anyone.

If soccer truly is Woodward's first love then it was inevitable that at some point he would try to use his management skills in that arena. The question then arises - how much use will they be in soccer?

At last year's Sports Personality of the Year party I found myself at the bar with David O'Leary and Peter Reid, both excellent company, and we were putting the world to rights. Although it was six in the morning, I was still banging on about the professionalism that Sir Clive Woodward and his players had shown in securing England's first World Cup since 1966.

As I went on to describe the minute attention to detail, the knowledge greedily gained from other sports and so on, O'Leary made an unarguable point - "I agree with you Brian, but he doesn't have to put up with player and agents' power." His point was that much though he might want to install the type of regime managed by Woodward, if a star player didn't like it, he would simply move. I think this is a profoundly depressing comment.

Yet it is this sort of reality that Woodward will face. I have heard enough stories from players who lived under Woodward's reign to know that his management style is autocratic. The words 'fools' and 'suffer' are not far away. How this will be received in soccer is anyone's guess, but mine is that it will not be welcome, even if it is right.

On top of this, Woodward will also be open to criticism that he has no experience and does not know soccer. This sort of closed-mindedness would also be wrong, but impossible to gainsay.

To answer the question of transferability you have to understand what Woodward did, and did not do. Despite popular belief, he was not a coach. His achievement was in putting in place a progressively specialised system of individual and unit coaches and in managing the way in which their efforts were directed.

Unfortunately, all too often when a player gets international status, many think they are the finished article and believe they do not need any more advice. Any display of this ridiculous attitude was rightly condemned under Woodward's system.

The level of specialism in the England rugby set up is not well known. The equivalent in soccer would be for there to be specialist coaches for each of the following areas: goalkeeping, full-backs, centre-backs, defence as a whole, attacking and defensive midfield, midfield as a whole, wide players, strikers, attack as a whole.

I cannot see soccer diehards accepting that they want, or need, this degree of specialisation and the attendant cost. They are wrong - and it is strange that they will pay up to £100,000 a week to players, but not spend the relatively small sums to help them improve further.

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