Southampton soccer club 'preparing offer' for Woodward

1.30pm - By CHRIS HEWETT

Sir Clive Woodward, the World Cup-winning coach who has resigned himself to turning his back on England's rugby team less than a year after guiding them to the summit of the international game, was hammering out the fine detail of his departure in a series of meetings at Twickenham yesterday.

The talks, which involved both the Rugby Football Union's chief executive Francis Baron and the chairman Graeme Cattermole, had been expected to be short, sharp and to the point.

Instead, they went on for hours.

Woodward, always an early starter, was spotted at the headquarters of the English game more than an hour-and-a-quarter before his first discussion with Baron.

After a lengthy afternoon break, the negotiations continued in the presence of Cattermole. There was no confirmation from the RFU that Woodward had handed in his notice, but the coach himself indicated to waiting reporters that there had been no change of heart on his part.

Meanwhile, the chairman of Southampton football club, Rupert Lowe, was widely reported to be keen on luring Woodward to the south coast with the offer of an unspecified role in the round-ball game.

Woodward, a keen football follower with a deep-seated attachment to Chelsea, has frequently expressed an interest in applying his managerial and motivational techniques to sports other than rugby, and Lowe, a close friend, seems more than willing to give him the opportunity.

The chairman was expected to raise the possibility at a Southampton board meeting today. Any immediate progress on that front would leave Woodward in something of a quandary, for he is committed to coaching the British and Irish Lions on their tour of New Zealand next summer.

The Lions remain an outpost of rugby tradition - the last roar of the amateur spirit, in the opinion of many - but in reality, they are as professional as any national team.

To make a decent fist of the job, Woodward would have to apply himself on a full-time basis from early December onwards.

The Lions hierarchy would be less than delighted if it turned out he was spending half his week dabbling around in Premiership football. Initially, Woodward wished to stay with England until the end of the three-match autumn series involving Canada and, rather more alarmingly in light of recent form, South Africa and Australia.

He hoped the RFU would then allow him to pass the reins to his assistant, the former Bath and England flanker Andy Robinson, for the Six Nations' Championship, thereby freeing him up for a clear run at the Lions.

By yesterday, however, he half-expected his employers to cut the cord immediately - a move that would leave Robinson in sole charge for the first time at international level.

The root of the problem, which flared this week after weeks and months of bitter infighting behind the closed doors of Twickenham's committee rooms, is the so-called Elite Player Scheme, under which Premiership rugby clubs release front-line personnel for England training days and monitor mandatory rest periods in return for financial compensation from the union - £30,000 per England squad member, plus another £10,000 per professionally contracted player in the intermediate and junior academies.

Woodward was appalled at what he saw as the inadequacies of the agreement, and said so to a number of high-ranking RFU figures.

The arguments have been long, bitter and bloody. Some of Woodward's critics - and there are many, despite a series of glorious achievements last year culminating in the capture of the Webb Ellis Trophy on an epic night in Sydney - privately accuse him of jumping on the EPS issue as a handy means of extricating himself from an England set-up currently in freefall.

The national team have lost five of their last six matches, and few people seriously expect them to beat either the Springboks or the Wallabies in November. The anti-Woodwardites claim he wants out, but also wants to be seen to leave for legitimate reasons.

There again, Woodward retains the support of some very senior figures. Bill Beaumont, the Lions manager and one of England's representatives on the International Rugby Board, is an ally, as is Fran Cotton, the chairman of Club England. Only this week, Lawrence Dallaglio echoed Woodward's concerns about the lack of preparation time built into the EPS by indicating his own fears over the limits imposed by the "treadmill" of professional rugby.

If Dallaglio's retirement from international rugby, a serious body blow to the world champions, was bad news for Twickenham, this public brouhaha with Woodward is infinitely worse. Suddenly, England are rudderless - every bit as rudderless as they were when the former Leicester centre succeeded Jack Rowell as coach in 1997.

Baron and his managerial colleagues may have clear ideas on who should replace Woodward, but the likes of Rob Andrew and Nigel Melville are contracted to Premiership clubs. Their recruitment would cost the RFU a pretty penny in compensation.

As the talks continued yesterday, there was growing speculation that Woodward would indeed clear his desk immediately. He was scheduled to speak at a formal press conference today, and was said by colleagues to be in fighting mood.

The RFU has had a rough week already. An hour spent on the sharp end of Woodward's tongue would make it considerably rougher.

- The Independent