Sir Clive Woodward: 'I feel I've got one big coaching job left in me - after 2012'

When Sir Clive Woodward was brought in as the Mr Motivator for Team GB's Olympic aspirations he described his revolutionary role as "the biggest challenge in British sport, and of my life". Eight months into the job, still treading his way through hitherto unfamiliar territory, and dextrously avoiding trampling on sensitive toes along the way, England's World Cup-winning rugby coach is confident he can he can help convert the next five years of effort into solid gold in 2012.

"I've really been blown away by some of the talent I've seen," he says. "Going to Australia for the Youth Olympics was a real eye-opener. To see how our youngsters performed, some of them between the ages of 14 to 16, against the world's best in sports like taekwondo and gymnastics was a revelation. There is a hell of a lot of talent out there. The potential is massive. Our job is to get the best out of it. But we all have to work together to do it."

Woodward is the British Olympic Association's first director of elite performance, hired by the chairman, Lord Colin Moynihan, as the highest- profile (and probably highest- paid at a reputed £300,000 a year) Svengali in sport outside the football field.

There was apprehension and not a little sniffiness from some sectors when Woodward was moved in, despite his assurance that he was not there to invade anyone's pitch. So how goes it so far? "Very well," he insists."I haven't met any resistance or scepticism at all. My job is to make sure the BOA deliver and give the athletes everything they require. I've never had any doubt it would work and that we could all pull together - UK Sport, the English Institute of Sport, funding agents, the coaches and the athletes themselves. As I say, the talent is there, we just have to make sure we work together and the pathway is possible."

Rugby people tell you of Woodward's win-or-bust ruthlessness, his vibrant imagination and bullish forthrightness, characteristics unfamiliar to the thankfully vanishing breed of Olympic blazerati. But he can also be charming and disarming, as UK Sport, the government-backed agency responsible for Lottery funding and high- performance sport, seem to have discovered, as they have overcome their initial wariness about his involvement by inviting him into their tent. He is included on the Mission 2012 performance panel which will monitor the progress of all Olympic and Paralympic sports in the run-up to the London Games.

Well, he has certainly been there, done it and got the trophy. Albeit in rugby union, a non-Olympic sport. So what qualities is he bringing to the Olympic table? He has always been left field, and is nothing if not innovative. Earlier this month he organised a three-day brainstorming session for judo, involving everyone in the sport from the chairman and chief executive and the coaches through to the top competitors. They met in conclave at a country hotel, bounced ideas off each other and talked through the Olympic gameplan. According to the sport's chairman, Densign White, it was a great success, and Woodward is intending to repeat the operation with other sports. Also present were representatives of UK Sport and the BOA.

"It was a sort of health check to see where we are," he explains. So it seems his mission is one of co-ordinator, not enforcer. "Exactly, and it is a role I really enjoy." This is reflected in his new association with amateur boxing, in which he has a keen interest. He is on a management group overseeing the sport's preparations for both the upcoming Games in Beijing and beyond. "I want to dig deep, get behind the scenes and see what makes the sport and the boxers themselves tick," he says.

"My main concern has always been the athletes in any sport I have been associated with. I like to know what they are thinking, are they delivering and how we can help them to achieve that aim. They are the ones at the sharp end. I have talked with people like Paula Radcliffe and Georgina Harland, the modern pentathlete, and it knocks me out when I see what they put into their sports.

"In some ways it is very similar to what I was doing before, for dealing with someone like Jonny Wilkinson is really no different to working with an Olym-pic athlete. The fundamentals are basically the same, they all want to be winners. The way of going about it is different, though. What interests me is to compare the sort of programme Jonny had with that of say, Karina Bryant, the judo heavyweight champion. They all talk the same language because their targets are the same, whether it is winning the Rugby World Cup or an Olympic gold medal.

"What I hope is that performance directors like swimming's Bill Sweetenham and Dave Brailsford in cycling can feel they can come to me and we can talk about preparation and elite performance. In fact, Dave was one of the first to look at what we are doing. But I would no more tell them what to do than they would have told me how to coach a rugby team. I only want to help - if I can suggest anything over and above what they are doing themselves, that's great."

He believes one of his main functions is to encourage the cross-fertilisation of ideas. "There are lessons that a sport like judo can learn from rowing and vice versa. If you have someone with real ability to win they deserve all the support they can get. So far there hasn't been a single sport I have come across that hasn't got the talent.

"In working with the athletes themselves I think what I achieved in rugby helps, as it gives me a certain amount of kudos. But once you get past that initial respect, you've then got to deliver back and help by understanding what they want and how they want to do it, even if it doesn't fit the norm.

"What I am interested in is the top of the triangle, the people who can win medals, that's my brief. I always believed in rugby that you work from the top down. If you can create icons and role models, then that will filter down to everyone else. I feel now as I did four years before winning the World Cup.

"This is a six-year job for me, six years I am devoting to help Britain have a great Olympics. My job is to help make sure it will happen. It is the biggest challenge of my life because of the importance to the country."

Does Woodward, 51, have withdrawal symptoms from coaching, we wondered? "Well, I was in coaching for a long time and I feel I have one big job left in me, but that will have to be after London." Would that be back in rugby or even football - he was performance director under Harry Redknapp with Southampton for a while?

"Who knows? Perhaps I could be a performance director for an Olympic sport. I'd think seriously about that. To be honest I'm not missing hands-on coaching at the moment, I'm too busy learning a lot. This job is an education for me. When I was a rugby coach I was always inviting people in. I like to think that's what's happening now. I am being invited into Olympic sports.

"In 1998 I asked Steve Redgrave to an England [rugby] coaching session. I think I learned more from him than anyone, and so did the players. What came over loud and clear is that he is such a determined individual. I became aware that some of the team stuff we were doing in rugby was wrong and we needed indi-vidual programmes. In that meeting we changed our approach. That's why I urge the performance directors to go anywhere to find those edges, to be sponges, soaking up everything, and not feel threatened by the people coming in.

"Steve shook a few England players telling them just what you have to do to win gold medals and how hard it is. I think by the time the team started winning there were quite a few of them who thought they could become gold medallists too. They became completely obsessed about winning."

So could it work the other way? Could we see Wilkinson or Martin Johnson enlisted to inspire canoeists, fencers or boxers? "Why not? It is quite possible, but I don't want to go charging into any sport and tell them what to do, never in a million years. My style is to say, 'Look, here's a thought for you, why don't you try this? But it's up to you'."

One suspects there still might be some suspicion of Woodward's motivational role and of Moynihan's motive in bringing him on board. There shouldn't be. The man knows how to get results from potential high- achievers and there can be no question of his commitment to the Olympic cause, or his affinity with those on the shop floor.

"The thing I've learned in sport," he says, "is that while you can bullshit the administrators, the coaches, and sometimes even the public, you can't bullshit the athletes. And once I get my teeth into something, I don't let it go."

Life & Times: From the gongs to the five rings

Name: Sir Clive Ronald Woodward OBE.

Born: 6 January 1956, Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Education: Loughborough University; BSc in Physical Education and Sports Science, '78.

Position: Rugby union centre.

Club Career: Harlequins '74; Leicester '79-85; Manly '85-90.

International Career: 21 caps for England; debut v Ireland '80; British Lions tour of South Africa '80 and New Zealand '83.

Coaching Career: Henley; London Irish; Bath; England '97-04, winning Grand Slam and World Cup '03; British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand '05.

Other Duties: Performance director, Southampton FC '05-06. Appointed as BOA's director of elite performance September '06.

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