The weekend phone calls between the Woodward and Dallaglio households would have made interesting eavesdropping as coach and captain confided.

My guess is that Lawrence Dallaglio had his retirement intentions confirmed when Sir Clive Woodward outlined his longer-term plans. No matter that the coach's hand was subsequently tipped by Monday's Daily Mail; both men clearly sensed that for their different reasons it was time to move on.

Dallaglio's decision will have been shaped by England's end-of-season trip to New Zealand and Australia as well as the desire to get off the treadmill and see more of his family. For Woodward it seems that another season of argument about how often his players can be excused club duties and what time they should be allowed to rest was the final straw.

However, I sense that the seed was already in his mind when, soon after the World Cup victory in Australia barely nine months ago, there were whispers that Woodward fancied transferring his considerable talents to another sport.

At the time such thinking was put down as fanciful nonsense but with hindsight it comes to fit the man perfectly. It would also be a reason why one of the game's great innovators missed the tricks he did last season. Where New Zealand, South African and Australia looked at the World Cup videos and moved on, England came close to standing still.

Woodward will always be regarded as a great manager: the man who made sure all the component pieces were in place for a successful England side. He got his players the best of everything - food, hotels, specialist coaches and medical back-up. But he was also a tactician who saw how England had to evolve to play a changing game and one which matched the 15 players he considered to be the best.

Look at videos of England between the 1999 and 2003 World Cups and there were at least three obvious styles: the 15-man game - "total rugby" if you like - which evolved into a wide game and finally the direct play which characterised England in Australia. But a coach once happy with change ultimately did not change fast enough.

Last season's Six Nations calendar was the perfect test-bed to start building towards the 2007 World Cup; Italy and Scotland were the opening two fixtures before the first real test against Ireland. They then played Wales with a tough concluding match against France.

England were conservative and sometimes confused in the opening matches before Ireland ended the four-year unbeaten run at Twickenham. France also beat them and the three defeats of a desperately tired team in New Zealand and Australia made it three wins from eight since the World Cup final.

He stuck with predictable patterns and players who, at best, were having difficulty coping with the hangover of success. But there have been other signs that Woodward's eye has not been entirely on the ball.

Instead of Team England being the innovator, the baton was handed to the clubs. We found new ways of either making our players fitter or giving them a different kind of fitness, whereas guys returned from England camps and reported that not much had changed since the halcyon day.

In many ways that is easy to understand. Woodward has always relished fresh challenges and he has run England for seven years.

After an international playing career he moved to Australia, playing for Manly and launching a business career. After nailing that challenge he moved back to England and did it all again.

His rise to become England's first professional coach was stellar, marred only by the disappointment of the 1999 World Cup, although his actions after defeat by South Africa help a lot in understanding the man.

The coach took himself off to Denver and the Broncos NFL club to ask what was needed to build a winning team. Along the way he discovered he had the potential to be a good "manager".

If you look in the front of World Cup 2003 - "the official account of England's World Cup triumph" - there are 31 portraits of the players who contributed both to the book and winning the cup. At the back is the other team Woodward built - the 18 coaches, video analysts, chefs, visual awareness experts and the like.

Repeating the exercise in 2007 possibly lacked the freshness a fertile mind demanded. But, if football is to be the new challenge, do not bet on Woodward refereeing five-a-side matches at Southampton or taking part in sessions of keepy-uppy or head tennis.