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Well, I'm sure he will give it his best shot.

Woodward should have been the coach on the Lions tour 2002, when England was in the ascendency. There's no doubt we would have won it. Instead, politics reared its ugly head, it was given to Henry with a resulting loss. However since winning the WC his approach and cv have been slightly off the wall to the extent that I don't know if he's brilliant or bonkers! Time will tell, I guess.

Good article but I disagree with your term "sports science quackery", as a student completing my third year of sports science at uni I have to say that as a olympic correspondent you would have more time for it. Sir Clive Woodward certainly did and hes one of the best coaches this countries ever had. The sports psychology he used while managing England was brilliant.

stephen!!

"Sports Science Quackery". Hmmm. Then you complain about our tendency as a nation to build people up and tear them down a nanosecond later. Please let us know what side of the fence you are on? I'm clear that the proof is there for all to see. When English or British teams have had real coaches like Clive, with a clear remit and no political nonsense to contend with then the results have been good. When we put in politically acceptable compromises or half baked "yes" people then we fail: simple as. England Football team is a case in point: same talent base plus professional coach leads to vastly better results or am I missing something?

Matt Slater- your 'sports science quackery' comment has already been highlighted by two other posters but I couldn't let you get away with it either. Honestly, for you to make a comment like that displays a complete lack of awareness and knowledge of real sport. Sports science is a crucial and fundamental aspect to every major sport in the world. Vastly more successful sporting nations than us have been using sports science principles for years. Only in the past decade or so have we really caught up. Comments like yours don't help the layman's view on the issue. And why contradict yourself by putting the following piece of evidence in brackets afterwards?

"a peripheral vision coach sounded daft when Woodward first suggested it but that same coach has now worked with the last two Rugby World Cup winners"

Honestly Matt, even if you were just saying it tongue-in-cheek, it's still an irresponsible comment for someone to make on a ´óÏó´«Ã½ blog.

Sir Clive had a clear vision of what he wanted to achieve for the RWC in 2003. Fortunately the powers that be allowed him to do it. He covered every possible aspect within his plan and he executed it perfectly. This was a plan of several years and he included a great deal of sports science which assisted him but at the end of the day his genius was second to none.

OK he did come unstuck with the Lions in 2005 but I do feel that he tried to achieve in 6 weeks with the Lions what he achieved in 6 years with England.

In the modern sporting world we should not underestimate the importance of "Sports Science". Would the British Cycling team have won as many Olympic medals without it? I wouldn't think so! If the powers that be allowed Sir Clive to continue to build upon his 2003 success English Rugby would be in a far healthier position than it is in at present.

Your comments Matt regarding "sports science quackery" are something that I would expect to read in the Daily Mail and not on the ´óÏó´«Ã½. This only reinforces the typical British Attitude towards sport and sporting excellence. Attitudes such as this are why England have failed to win the Football World Cup for over 40 years.

Sport in the modern era needs visionaries such as Sir Clive Woodward and not Daily Mail style jingoism. We as a nation expect instant success and to win every major championship without question. What we are not prepared to do is consider how we do this and be patient enough to realise that time is one of the most important factors. In my humble opinion journalists are the worst people for reinforcing our skewed British Attitude.

Sir Clive is one of the great thinkers of his generation and he will bring success to the BOA.

Haha, I didn't read the headline properly Matt! I did wonder why such a glorious opportunity for punnage had been passed up. Turned out that it hadn't. Good job!

I too take issue with your use of "sports science quackery". The only time the use of sports science is pretentious or common sense dressed as something else, is when a coach gets hold of a small bit of knowledge and dresses it up as his own. In an ideal world, a coach would be just that, a coach. Used to teach technique and tactics (and even these can be hugely supplemented by scientific knowledge). Physical and mental fitness should be left to the sports science and physiotherapy team who can look to research to find proven methods.

A recent seminar given by a highly respected football manager initially caused a massive grin on the faces of the coaches when their role was placed at the top of a pyramidal model of management, only to have it slowly drop when it was explained that without the base created by the physiotherapists, biomechanists, nutritionists, psychologists and physiologists, they would just be polishing the proverbial.

I would tend to agree with Paddlesnapper. This disregard to the fact that science has a role to play is sport is hugely detrimental to our countries sporting success. It has taken far too long for those in charge of our sports teams to take any sports science knowledge on board, instead they assume the ideas passed down by generations of coaches, scared to take on new ideas? Or is it just that they don't want any performance increase to be attributed to the bloke in the lab with the white coat?

I think that is where the confusion lies. To me at least it seemed as if you were referring to all sports science as quackery, yet then approving of several things sports science did for Clive and his teams. Never-the-less I do believe a negative attitude to all technical speak is manifesting itself in the media, with it all being labelled as jargon and buzz-words. When to the trained ears, the terms are perfectly warranted. A list of most mis-understood jargon appeared on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ site recently, most of which, were bona fide technical terminologies.

But never-the-less, good article. And I'll leave you to it now.

really enjoyed the read Matt. I particularly liked your honesty in the first paragraph. BUT, your "sports science quackery" is utterly ridiculo... *interrupts self* - sorry, i can't keep a straight face, i really don't get the offense?! At least there are some people who don't read everything too seriously! (maybe that's why I LOVE ROBBO ROBSON BLOGS!).

But no, thoroughly enjoyed it, a good read after an exam on America in Latin America after 1945!

I understand what you meant now, so, sorry for having a go. I thought you meant sport science was quackery, not the misuse of it. I suppose I have a chip on my shoulder because so many people have a go at me for studying it. If one more person calls it a glorified PE course I may explode!

More to the point, who on earth is that fine young specimen in the first photo? Phwoar basically. Full marks to the bbc.co.uk pictures editor.

…just coming!

Now now Mr Slater my comment was in response to what you stated in point 7 as opposed to just the main article.

Well I, for one, don't have a problem with the "sports science quackery" remark! To be honest I'm amazed so many do! It's the sort of stuff I would sleep through! I would be interested to see any proper evidence for it (and saying "look at the results" doesn't count, I mean real evidence).

Thinking about it, "interested" might not have been the right word there.

george_the_second, the proper evidence for sports science working is modern sport. Without sports science nothing would have changed since the 40s. How can you ask to see evidence without looking at results?

Im sure you believe that 70 years of scientific research is wrong and you are right, and Id love to debate this with you but im sure it would be an exercise in futility. I can't stand it when people make flippant remarks like yours, have you done any research into your comments that it doesn't exist or are you just writing the first confrontational thing that comes into your head?

And I know that this looks like im taking it too seriously and need to lighten up but to be fair this is something Ive studied in high school, college and uni and I don't appreciate somebody saying its worthless

Eh, Charlotte isn't one of the five remaining funded shooters.....

Well Matt, I think you're going soft on the BOA's Elite Performance Director. What has he really achieved in three years at the helm? It is clear that very few of the Performance Directors in our Olympic Sports want him freelancing on their patch and in the meantime his failed programme has cost the BOA close to £2m. Shame that money wasn't made available to those sports that have now lost their UK Sport funding.