Clive Woodward used a host of business and team-building techniques to win the Rugby World Cup. Now he wants to do it all over again. Larissa Bannister and Trevor Merriden report

Winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia will no doubt alleviate for the time being, at least some of the constant pressure on Clive Woodward, Englands now widely celebrated rugby coach. And when the pressure returns, most of it will come from Woodward himself. He and the Rugby Football Union (RFU) have come a long way since 1997 when he took on the job. Now, having reached the summit of world rugby, he is not about to throw away all that he has achieved.

The self-inflicted pressure has, perhaps, already begun. My job is to make sure that this continues, he said in the aftermath of his teams triumph. Sport is sport and you have to stay focused. The minute you think youve cracked it, you finish second. I want England to become the leading force in world rugby.

Woodward has never changed his approach to the game. And its not the usual sports coach stuff. Woodward has run a business himself, and sees strong parallels with his current role.

Speaking exclusively to Human Resources prior to the World Cup, he said: Running the England team is just like running a business. You have to take risks; you have to be prepared to make mistakes. This business is more brutal than most, you either win or lose. And if you lose, you lose your job.

Woodward took over as the game went professional, and the RFU and local clubs alike had to build a new business infrastructure to support the game from scratch. He has taken some stick in the media for his approach to a sport that used to pride itself on its turn up and play mentality. However, no one can really doubt any longer that his approach works.

From the start, Woodward has been a firm believer that preparation is all. Look at the football World Cup in 2002. The big teams arrived under-prepared including England and they didnt achieve their expectations. Preparation is key in business, too, he insists. You wouldnt run a business or go into a big meeting with a fingers crossed attitude, he adds.

When Woodward took over, the England rugby team was ranked sixth in the world. The turnaround in Englands fortunes, culminating in the World Cup victory, has been engineered by Woodward and the team he has put in place at Twickenham. There are now four coaches, as well as full-time staff working on the players fitness and nutrition, sports psychology and IT. The training regime has been extended so that the youth teams will be used to the set-up by the time they reach the senior team.

There is a great team here now behind the scenes, says Woodward, but it has taken a lot of hard work. His biggest challenge has been to create a highly motivated team out of a disparate group of individuals that got together only occasionally. Clubs and the RFU had been at war since the game went professional but they finally reached a landmark agreement in September last year specifically with the World Cup in mind. Woodward negotiated 20 release dates beyond the eight scheduled weeks set aside for the build-up to international matches.

This made all the difference and compares favourably with the club versus country debacle in football. Top football club managers have consistently failed to release their top players for international friendly matches, citing a succession of niggling injuries that mysteriously clear up when the clubs go back into action. England

football manager Sven-Gran Eriksson arranged a special summit to sort out a similar agreement, but failed.

Cutting a deal with the clubs was the final strand of Woodwards coaching strategy, which he has worked out with consultants. There are three strands: leadership, teamship and partnership, he says, scribbling a diagram in illustration. Most people understand the first two, but partnership is something else. Its about working with other departments, with sponsors and with the clubs.

Woodward gave all the England players questionnaires to fill out on how the team was doing in all three areas. Until the deal with clubs, leadership and teamship came out very strong, but partnership still lagged. In an ideal model, all three are linked, he says. In 1997 all three were miles apart. My challenge has been to build the partnership.

Woodward has been able to create arguably the best team culture in English international sport. I want to make playing for England special, to create an environment that everyone wants to be part of and no one wants to leave, he says, leaning forward over his scrupulously tidy desk. Id be annoyed if our team spirit wasnt better than at any club.

He has introduced a whole host of measures to make all this happen, many of which have their roots in psychology. The team has to change shirts at halftime to concentrate minds on the second half. The changing rooms at Twickenham have been revamped to an impressive standard. Woodward insists that if England are to compete with the best, they must have the best facilities. The changing room walls are adorned with motivational slogans, while the entrance to the players tunnel that leads on to the pitch features plaques commemorating famous England victories.

Woodward has also introduced the concept of teamship rules, which every single player even if they are the rugby equivalent of Ronaldo, he quips signs up to or doesnt play.

The rules are created by the team themselves, and communicated by team representatives who liaise with management. Among other things, the players have banned swearing and mobile phones in public, insist that players who are dropped must congratulate their rivals, forbid dishing dirt on each other in the media and pledge to ensure that work is fun.

Woodward says he has never had a problem managing star players like Jonny Wilkinson, and he certainly subscribes to the view that no individual is greater than the team.

Nor is Woodward afraid to stick his neck out. His insistence that England players receive IT training prompted hoots of derision from Fleet Street. Now, however, big chunks of the teams training programme are undertaken remotely on computers.

We have full-time IT staff who create training videos out of match footage, he says. The players can view them on their laptops and give us their feedback via email. This technology is vital, especially as the team have to go back to their clubs almost straight away after test matches.

Woodward places as much emphasis on the mental side of the game as he does on the more physical aspects, although he dislikes using the word psychology. Instead, he names his form of mental discipline personal professional preparation. Its about something I call T-cup, he says, or thinking correctly under pressure.

Woodward reasoned, correctly, that while the World Cup teams from all nations would be full of players with natural ability, it would be the team that could think best under pressure that would win. The England teams psychological training involved mental rehearsal, preparation and visualisation of situations that may occur. Then, when you are in a big game situation and you have to make a split-second decision it wont be a new experience, it will be something you have rehearsed and planned for, he explains. And that, as the world now knows, included drills for drop goals.