White Gold by Peter Burns

Author:Peter Burns [Burns, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857906946
Publisher: Birlinn

SEVEN

THE ANATOMY OF EXCELLENCE

‘You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.’

Vince Lombardi

THE SUCCESS OF the autumn series put the disappointment of the Lions tour and the Grand Slam loss to Ireland to one side and spread a feel-good factor within the England squad so that they went into the 2002 Six Nations Championship with a great sense of optimism.

England’s first game was away to Scotland in Edinburgh. To maximise their preparation time, Woodward kept the team at Pennyhill Park until the Thursday before the match before flying north. It was a gritty game, but England showed their class and won 29–3, scoring four tries through Mike Tindall and Ben Cohen while Jason Robinson crossed twice.

*

A few days later, in the video analysis suite at Pennyhill Park, Tony Biscombe sat transfixed at his computer as he put together a series of clips from the Calcutta Cup match. While sitting in the stands at Murrayfield, he had noticed something but hadn’t wanted to raise it with Woodward until he had had a closer look at the footage after the game. Now he had confirmation of what he had seen, evidence to back up his initial impressions. He finalised the clips and burnt them to a DVD, then went to find Woodward.

The two of them sat down in Woodward’s room and went through Biscombe’s findings. While Will Greenwood, Austin Healey, Ben Cohen and Jonny Wilkinson all featured in the montage, the main footage that Biscombe had gathered had been of Jason Robinson. Now playing full-back, Robinson had scorched in for two tries but there had been several occasions when he had made a half-break through the defensive line and was hauled down only because a Scottish defender had managed to get hold of his baggy shirt.

‘If his shirt was tighter,’ said Biscombe, pausing the action as centre Gregor Townsend reached out a desperate hand towards the breaking Robinson, just managing to grab the back of his flapping jersey, ‘Townsend wouldn’t have even laid a finger on him. And even if he had, he wouldn’t have had enough purchase to bring Jason down. He probably wouldn’t have even slowed him down.’

Woodward’s brow was furrowed but his eyes were bright. Tighter shirts. Why not? It made perfect sense. Tighter and lighter. Surely that was possible.

Within an hour he had sent an email to Nike, the kit suppliers to the team, with Biscombe’s clips attached. It was an email that became something of a company legend as it passed from department to department at Nike and the challenge to design the new shirt was enthusiastically accepted. It took eighteen months of development but in the end they had just the product that Woodward was after – and from that moment on, rugby shirt design never looked back.

*

In round two of the Six Nations, England welcomed Ireland to Twickenham and more than made amends for their performance against Keith Wood’s men in the autumn by sweeping the visitors aside 45–11.

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