Goode takes swipe at Woodward's 'ridiculous rugby oracle' persona

Ex-England international Andy Goode has taken a swipe at Clive Woodward for the ridiculous persona he has when commentating on rugby. The World Cup-winning boss hasn’t worked as a rugby coach since his disastrous time in charge of the 2005 Lions, who were hammered 3-0 in their Test series versus the All Blacks.  

However, being victorious at the 2003 World Cup has given Woodward a gravitas that continues to make him a sought-out pundit and he spent the 2022 Guinness Six Nations working for ITV as well as writing columns for the Daily Mail. 

That punditry culminated this past weekend in an avalanche of criticism from Woodward about the tenure of Eddie Jones as the England coach and the unflinching backing he has continued to receive from the RFU despite a second successive Six Nations in which his team won just two of its five matches. 

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While ex-England out-half Goode similarly felt that Jones tactically got numerous things wrong this year, he has taken issue on this week’s Rugby Pod with the grating manner in which Woodward continues to put his tumultuous opinions across and accused the ex-coach of being too long out of the game.    

“You have got to ask the questions and obviously there is a bit of a different angle from Clive going at Eddie Jones,” explained Goode, warming to the hot topic of Woodward versus Jones on The Rugby Pod show that he co-hosts with Jim Hamilton. 

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“He is not scared to go hard at him and there is a history there around ’03 and other things and Clive Woodward has obviously got issues with the RFU because of things that transpired after ’03… Clive has got this persona of himself that he thinks he is the greatest rugby brain there is. Well, Clive, your only work in rugby really at the minute is on ITV and you need to be in there day in, day out. 

“We talk about it, watch it all the time and we are involved in it yet sometimes I feel quite out of touch with seeing how a team set themselves up so for Clive to think he is the oracle of rugby is ridiculous because he is not involved in the game – but also he has got the experience of being a Test match coach and has the ability to understand the game and question Eddie Jones’ tactics completely.”