Johnson - the right man but not the right now man.

Let’s be honest, who of us when offered the job to lead our country to a World Cup would have the objectivity and personal awareness to turn it down,  if we weren’t really ready. If you had been the only Captain of your country to hold aloft the Webb Ellis trophy would you doubt your ability to inspire? The simple answer is none of us. In my view Johnsons failing is not that he was not the man for the job, it was that he was not the man for the job now.

I remember the first time I met Martin Johnson. It was in a gym in Leicester, the Tigers used a weights gym up at the running track and Johnson appeared complete with a fairly brutal scar to his shoulder where he had had surgery. Even then he was a bit of a glarer. I think all good second rows have a bit of the red mist glare about them.  All great rugby players need presence and Johnson had it. Although presence isn’t enough to make a World Cup captain, you need determination and heart.

 I remember a subsequent time at the track that really spelt out the nature of Johnson. We arrived to run some 200 meter training runs, Johnson had already run 10, 400 meter runs on his own and asked if he could join us. We chatted walking up to the line and then bang he was gone full tilt, nothing held back, we over took him as we should as a combination of backs and back row players. However each run became closer and closer. Until the last few runs only the fastest of backs were beating him. The guy was seriously fit and had an unnatural determination to succeed. This is probably why he was the first English captain to raise the trophy and why everyone now knows his name and not that of the other people training that day.

This determination for excellence ran through pretty much all of Johnson’s career, matched to his loyalty – he was a one club player – and his natural leadership he was bound for success. But his history should have told him there were no short cuts. Just as he put in extra training at the track so he really needed time to learn how to coach. Many of his colleagues decided to do just that, Neil Back went with the Leicester 2^nd team Coach Andy Key to Leeds and learnt his trade there. He applied his knowledge of fitness levels to the team that took them to the Premiership. Probably the most successful is Richard Cockerill who has in many ways followed a full apprenticeship. Going abroad to France first and then coming back to Leicester and proving to be far more cerebral as a coach than his aggressive pitch persona would suggest.

Johnson had none of this training; he had to rely on the coaches already there to fill his CV gaps. Unfortunately with the exception of Rowntree, the rest were really not up to the job. Johnsons other problem was one of detachment. Many of his squad were friends from his playing days. How do you tell an old friend they are now not good enough for the squad when a few years earlier you were their Captain telling them they were the best in the world? If Johnson had followed Cockerill’s example and given himself space and time, he may have found the clear head required of a coach. It was uncomfortably obvious to most that Johnson found this detachment difficult as he continued to pick Borthwick as Captain. Borthwick a typically whole hearted bloke but who was to international captaincy what Fenton was to one man and his dog.

I hope Johnson goes away and learns his trade at a good club level, maybe abroad. Then gradually comes back to the international fold, perhaps as the forwards coach. He has much to give back but not just yet.

Is English Rugby going the way of English Football?

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/nov/23/england-world-cup-fiasco-leaked-report

Another week – another damning report on the state of English rugby. For weeks we had the debacle of the RFU hiring an intelligent and business driven CEO only to then drive him out. John Steele’s fault was to not understand the hugely political and backbiting nature of the RFU. Anyone who has played any sort of representative rugby will recognise the make-up of the RFU board. Mainly old boys who have intense interest in their own opinion and self-importance. They were subdued by the economic achievements of Francis Bacon, the previous CEO, but this was just a cloak covering what is effectively an old boys club. Once Steele hit this he really had no chance – they weren’t looking for a leader more a puppet to do their bidding. He was forced out on what was seen as a botched recruitment process for Performance Director – a job the board hoped would bring back the saviour of Rugby – Sir Clive Woodward. The RFU now stands under the Chairman Martyn Thomas – who was probably more influential in Steele going than anyone else and with all the blame for the failed recruitment process placed on Steele. Let’s not forget this is the same board that forced out Clive Woodward in the first place and signed off the all the decisions they sacked Steele for making. They are without doubt all tainted by this – perhaps it is time for a totally new board, with a better representation of players, fans and officials.

Then we have the failed world cup bid. I for one had no problems with the team out having a few beers together and building the team moral. However it now seems that even this was a false picture. The camp was divided into those who wanted to party and ridicule the effort in training of others. Worse still a core only interested in the money to be made from a ‘last’ world cup. All the rugby players who went before would be weeping for the state of a game they used to love. Up until 15 years ago the game was amateur, with players competing in International sport and on the Monday back at a desk with their colleagues. In the first world cups the drive for the English was they did not want to go out of the tournament or it meant going back to work. Now we hear of players gutted at the £35,000 they could have made from winning.

Conan Doyle captured the original amateur spirit in his Sherlock Holmes novels, when Holmes comes across a Rugby man ‘You live in a different world to me, Mr. Overton--a sweeter and healthier one. My ramifications stretch out into many sections of society, but never, I am happy to say, into amateur sport, which is the best and soundest thing in England’. In just over 15 years these ideals are being lost and we are moving towards the Football model, players detached from the crowd that support them, on money they can only dream of, interested more in their own wealth than the pride of representing their nation. Do we really want Rugby to resemble Football?

The Rob Andrew report that has leaked shows clearly we have no leadership in English rugby. Not on the board of the RFU, not from the management of the RFU, not from the Team manager and not from the captain. With the power of money threatening to destroy the very make-up of the Rugby spirit – it is now vital we find some leaders. They have a saying ‘ change the people or change the people’. Find a CEO who has experience of driving a complex and large organisation forward. Build an inclusive and cooperative board (sack the existing board entirely), find a new manager with experience and integrity, find a captain with some pride in the Red Rose on a white shirt. I dread to think of the fun Sir Gerry Robinson would have tearing apart the way the RFU is run.