Clive Woodward, the Director of Elite Performance at the British Olympic Association speaking at Aspire Academy yesterday. Woodward was speaking on the topic ‘DNA: Talent alone is not sufficient’. The 57-year-old was manager of the England rugby team which won the World Cup in 2003.
BY ARMSTRONG VAS
DOHA: Thinking correctly under pressure is what makes a champion athlete, says rugby legend Clive Woodward.
The 57-year-old, who managed England team to victory in the 2003 World Cup, was speaking during a presentation ‘DNA: Talent alone is not sufficient’ at Aspire Academy here yesterday.
Terming ‘Thinking correctly under pressure’ as T-CUP, Woodward said an individual who handles the pressure at crucial stages is one who emerges as a champion.
“The dividing line between a champion team and good teams is very thin,” said Woodward, who is currently the British Olympic Association’s Director of Elite Performance.
“Everyone cannot be a champion, you need both ‘warriors’ and ‘champions’ in your team,” he said in his address to the gathering which consisted of coaches and coaching support staff attached to the Aspire Academy besides school students.
Going back to the 2003 World Cup winning unit, Woodward said the team had ‘four champions and 11 warriors’.
“Talent alone is not enough. Hard work, passion, and understanding are the other ingredients which go into the making of the champion,” said Woodward, who served as coach of the England rugby team from 1997 to 2004.
“A player needs to have huge drive and obsession to become a champion,” said Woodward in his 45-minute presentation.
He said the principles of the programme devised by him can be applied to both individuals and teams to attain success but warned that results cannot be achieved overnight. “It is a long-term programme. It can be applied to football teams too and not just for rugby,” he said during the question-answer session. He, however, did not pinpoint a specific start off age for children to be introduced to sports in order to become champions.
Woodward said Spain has a large pool of qualified coaches at the top which explains for their success in football in recent years.
“I love football. I do not see any reason the principles of the programme cannot be implemented in football especially during the penalty kick conversions, especially T-CUP,” added Woodward, who served for a brief period at Southampton Football Club as Performance Director and Director of Football.
Woodward was happy with the performance of the current rugby team and expressed confidence that England will bounce from their latest defeat against Wales.
“It is a young team and it will come back strongly in the next matches. It has performed according to the expectations,” said Woodward, while talking to The Peninsula.
England were ripped apart 30-3 by a rampant Wales on the March 16 at the Millennium Stadium in the Six Nations Championship
Head coach Stuart Lancaster’s side went to Cardiff with dreams of a Grand Slam but suffered their worst ever defeat in 132 years of rugby matches between the two nations.
“Every coach has his own ways of dealing with the press,” Woodward said when asked where he would draw a line on allowing or not allowing journalists to be present for a team training session.
“Some coaches are comfortable allowing the cameras in the dressing room, while others are not,” he added.
Woodward, who was inducted into the IRB Hall of Fame on October 24, 2011, had criticised BBC’s move to record behind-the-scenes action in the England’s camp, before the crushing defeat by Wales. “The working environment of an international rugby team should be absolutely secret — and never more so than in a Test week. International rugby is a very serious business — indeed, it is hard to think of any business that would allow such access,” he said. “As a professional coach I find it difficult to understand why you would allow microphones to record your training sessions, your private team meetings, your video room, your private conversations,” Woodward wrote in his Daily Mail column.
“As a professional coach it should never have been allowed to happen,” he wrote.
For Woodward this was his third visit to Qatar.
“I have been here earlier for the Aspire4Sport business and sport conference for the past couple of years,” informed Woodward.
The Peninsula
