Ireland have outwitted England: Woodward
ENGLAND World Cup winning coach Sir Clive Woodward has lauded Ireland’s appointment of Andy Farrell as new head coach from next autumn as “a masterstroke”.
He also congratulated Ireland on not only reviving Farrell’s coaching career but on nailing him down as the obvious successor to Joe Schmidt who leaves his post after the World Cup.
“With Andy Farrell taking over from Joe Schmidt after next year’s World Cup, you can only conclude Ireland’s gain is England’s loss,” Woodward said.
“First, congratulations yet again to Ireland for their clever and intelligent handling of their coaching succession.
“Bringing in a completely new coach, perhaps from overseas, after a World Cup and announcing it well ahead of time would have been fraught.
“There can be an element of the ‘farewell party’ about proceedings and players’ attention could also wander to the future and the new regime and whether their face fits or not.
“But appointing Farrell from within is a masterstroke and kills that possibility stone dead.
“Farrell and Schmidt work incredibly closely. Farrell is totally respected by the players and backroom staff, and when everybody clocks back on after the World Cup there will be continuity.
“And unless Ireland ‘bomb’ in the World Cup, there will be huge momentum.”
Woodward also said that he is “filled with despair” that England have missed out on the possibility of enticing Farrell back to their coaching ticket.
Farrell parted company from England as defence coach after the last World Cup when Eddie Jones was hired in the wake of Stuart Lancaster’s resignation.
Somewhat ironically, Lancaster has also revived his career by moving across the Irish Sea by successfully working with Leinster, and is rumoured to be part of Ireland’s new coaching structure once Schmidt departs.
“As for England missing out on a brilliant home-grown coach, I am almost filled with despair. Farrell has always been an outstanding individual, a great player and a coach of massive potential,” he said.
“It’s a flawed system that fails to acknowledge English coaching talent like Farrell and to keep them on board,” Woodward added.
Bright future: Andy Farrell has shown he has what it takes to coach at the very top
Though Woodward (below) admits that Farrell was tainted — along with Lancaster — by England’s dismal World Cup showing on their home turf in 2015, he nevertheless argues that failure is part and parcel of coaching and that knee-jerk moves to axe talented individuals can come back to bite.
In this instance that is clearly the case, and the evidence is now clearly there with the rise of both Farrell
and Lancaster within the Irish system.
“Every national coach — or assistant coach as Farrell was — will at some time be associated with failure,” Woodward said.
“Eddie Jones, Graham Henry, Steve Hansen, Warren Gatland, myself and many others have been there and got the T-shirt. But that didn’t make us bad coaches.
“In fact, that losing experience can be the making of a coach, and for the last few seasons Ireland
have benefited massively from the hard yards Farrell put in with England,” commented Woodward.
“The feedback from Farrell with England was always positive, so where was the necessity to ditch him after the World Cup?
“The RFU have never grasped the nettle and put a rugby man with the necessary experience in charge of rugby appointments and the result has been a succession of CEOs — with no experience of coaching national teams — making these crucial, sometimes nuanced decisions,” he added.