The England manager Clive Woodward said yesterday that his side were the worst prepared in international rugby and accused the Premiership clubs of putting next year's World Cup in jeopardy by playing politics.

Woodward was angry that the 12 Premiership clubs' directors of rugby had been told by Premier Rugby, the umbrella organisation of clubs, not to turn up to a presentation he gave on Wednesday on the elite player schedule which he believes would make England the team to beat in the World Cup.

"I was desperately disappointed the directors were not there," he said. "The schedule is fair and straightforward; it will not disrupt club rugby by putting England first. We have the players, the coaching staff and the financial resources to win the World Cup but if we have the training programme of the last 12 months we will not be successful.

"I have only had the players for two days outside international weeks and I need them for a minimum of 20. It seems that the people in charge of Premier Rugby are running amok and we are not moving forward. Their attitude is totally baffling; I spoke to a number of directors of rugby and the majority of them wanted to come to the presentation but they were told to stay away.

"It is now up to the board of England Rugby Ltd to reach a decision on issues like player release and the minimum period of rest during the off-season. I will be bound by their decision and I certainly have no intention of chucking in the job, but I want to be concen trating on coaching and not talking about structures."

The Rugby Football Union held a 90-minute presentation of the proposed elite player programme for the media yesterday. It was the one prepared for the directors of rugby but Woodward and his support team ended up on Wednesday afternoon addressing the converted, in the form of 20 international players.

"The reason the directors of rugby did not turn up was that the original purpose of the meeting had been changed by the RFU," said Howard Thomas, chief executive of Premier Rugby. "We were unhappy that details had been made public in advance, contrary to an agreed confidentiality clause. Due process was not observed.

"We remain as committed as Clive Woodward to reaching a solution, and substantial progress has been made in recent months, but everyone has to go through the proper channels. We want the board of ERL to meet next week to discuss the actions of an element of the RFU management who did not follow agreed policy.

"It should not be forgotten that 50% of England rugby is the national side and the other half is the Premiership. The last thing we want is for a return to the days of strife which preceded last year's agreement with the RFU, but a lot of hard work lies ahead before we get an agreement."

· Northampton's England winger Ben Cohen will miss Saturday's Zurich Championship semi-final at Bristol with foot trouble. Cohen is one of three leading Saints players out through injury, the others being the lock Johan Ackermann (shoulder) and centre Peter Jorgensen (rib).

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