Winning! – Clive Woodward
What’s the Book About?
In the main part this is about Clive’s tenure as coach of
the England Rugby Union team but it covers some of his
earlier experiences as a player and coach.
What did you learn from the book?
Clive is a man for planning, he uses a phrase ‘Success
from setbacks and build on success’ and as such
analyses success and failure and makes plans and next
steps from these.
The biggest thing for me was that he doesn’t then
impose his plans on his players, but instead looks to get
the whole team on board with making the changes
before implementing them – yes sometimes its’ meant
doing something dramatic to ‘try’ a theory but it’s the
trying that made his successes so inspirational.
I really liked the idea of making the whole experience of
playing for the team important, from the moment they
left home to returning home was all included in making the best environment to play in.
Something that’s getting bigger in coaching at the moment is training like you play, which means
intensity that matches the actual game. Clive called this T-CUP (Think Correctly Under Pressure),
which he worked on to ensure his players could make calm, rational decisions no matter what the
score on the clock.
Who do you think would benefit from reading this book?
Any coach or team manager who wants to develop players and/or a team and wants to impact the
whole player and the whole experience.
Reviewed by:
Lorna Leach
Coaching Officer
londonsport.org