Brian Moore calls out Sir Clive Woodward for ‘offering unevidenced solutions’ amidst current RFU controversy

Colin Newboult
Former England head coach Sir Clive Woodward and ex-Test hooker Brian Moore (inset).

Former England head coach Sir Clive Woodward and ex-Test hooker Brian Moore.

Brian Moore has called out Rugby World Cup-winning boss Sir Clive Woodward over his “soundbites” which the former hooker believes solve little in the English game.

The ex-England head coach has been a constant critic of the Rugby Football Union (RFU), an organisation which has come under increasing pressure over the past week.

There have been calls for Bill Sweeney to resign after it was revealed that the CEO pocketed £1.1 million last year, including an extra £358,000 performance bonus, while other governing body bigwigs shared almost £1 million between them.

That was despite the RFU posting losses of almost £40 million and making 42 employees redundant in 2024.

Woodward’s plan for English rugby

The RFU’s woes will come as no surprise to Woodward, who has regularly wrote about the governing body and what he thinks the issues are.

That included a column written late last year, which was headlined: ‘My ten point plan to fix English rugby’, but Moore insisted that some of the ideas were simply nonsensical.

“Clive asked: ‘Why isn’t Martin Johnson on the RFU board? Why aren’t guys like Will Greenwood and Matt Dawson involved in the game?’ and continued ‘The RFU needs no-nonsense figures with rugby experience who will front up to the media, supporters and the clubs on big issues’,” he wrote in his Telegraph column.

“I have huge respect for Clive and the three mentioned players but what the hell does this mean?

“None of the aforesaid have legal or medical expertise or, as far as I am aware, experience of operating within complicated organisational governance structures.

“How will ‘no-nonsense fronting up’ be applied? To what governance roles are they suited and why will any of this succeed?”

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Moore also slammed Woodward for his criticism of the “nameless committees” that help appoint England’s head coach.

The ex-Test front-rower wrote: “He [Woodward] called for transparency, saying – ‘We simply don’t know who the people who make these decisions are. It has been indicated the RFU doesn’t name the decision-makers for fear of social media abuse. How utterly pathetic!’

“I know that some of the members of this advisory panel were in Clive’s successful 2003 team and that they only agreed to help if their identities were not released.

“Should the RFU have broken that agreement, or should they have insisted that panel members be publicly named, in which case they would have been denied the sort of input Clive calls for?”

The sport’s problems

Moore understands that there are problems in both the English and world game, but that Woodward’s comments and ideas do nothing to help improve the sport.

“There are deep-rooted and serious issues facing both English and world rugby, but they will not be solved by soundbites that offer unevidenced solutions,” he added.

“I don’t believe that complex corporate issues can be solved by some form of strange rugby-knowledge osmosis.”

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