Sir Clive was never going to go quietly, but somehow it seems important to remember that he went with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a cup of coffee. Thus, at his last audience, he never actually jabbed anyone in the eye.
He did, of course, make his employers at the Rugby Football Union (RFU) - his former employers - squirm by telling them that they had been lily-livered in their negotiations with the clubs on the issue of player release for England duty. And he did reopen a can of worms by saying that, since he was on the subject, the clubs were intrinsically self-serving and selfish.
It was classic Harvard Business School, management practice at its most honed. Make your hands as unthreatening as possible, but kick everybody in the nuts as hard as you can. Sir C to a T.
But was he right? Or were these just the ramblings of a bloke a few punts short of a full kicking game? From the Harvard Business School comes another maxim: if you're going to flounce, flounce big. I think it's fair to say that rugby's knight flounced into football with a flourish.
And of course he was right. The RFU, for all that they have turned around their finances and for all their grand plans for the final phase of Twickenham's redevelopment, remain the dear old RFU. 'Now, Clive,' they might have purred, 'you have to realise that the chaps at the clubs were pretty much on-side when it came to the last World Cup and now we have to work the old quid pro quo. They went out on a limb for us and now we're going to cut them some slack. Yes, we know it means giving back a few training days, but you just can't have the players at Pennyhill Park all the time, old thing. Think of the laundry.'
And the English clubs haven't reached the point of being able to boast five European Cup triumphs in nine years without being ruthlessly single-minded. Those nine years of Heineken competition include two years of English boycott. The clubs are militant and proud of it, having dragged themselves from dark-age amateurism to commercial viability with precious little guidance from above.
SEVEN YEARS IN the job as England head coach, Woodward lived and worked through the whole period of boycott and anarchy. That the clubs have emerged as successful as they are is something of a miracle, but nothing compared to what the coach of England pulled off. He transformed the way a generation of players thought about their game, revolutionised their attitude towards playing it. He made his team world champions.
There was a time - distant now - when the England players looked forward to England squad sessions as relief from chaos elsewhere. That sense of relief was turned into the most ferocious competitive determination. Relief at finding a sanctuary was converted into the ardour of zealots in their retreat.
Martin Johnson and co were spooky in their resolution. It's what it takes. The club system does not take the best players anywhere near the level required for international success. English clubs may enjoy triumphs at European level, but just as even the Super 12 in the southern hemisphere is no great test-bed for international rugby, so the gulf between, say, Wasps and England is still vast.
The clubs have gone through their own revolution, but their mantra is viability for themselves first and foremost. And if that means concocting a Premiership play-off system that runs into June then that's what they'll do. England need their players rested and working on systems beyond the familiar; the clubs need the star players on permanent duty with them to keep the motions regular.
Club v country is a friction-based system peculiar not just to England, but also to France. Most countries, from New Zealand and Australia to Ireland and Wales, have players on central contracts. Country comes first. But in France they share all England's problems. National coach Bernard Laporte says that he needs the France squad assembled at the Marcoussis national rugby centre in Paris for testing, while a top club coach, such as Guy Noves at Toulouse, wants Fabien Pelous and the other half-a-dozen Stade Toulousain players at home working on the line-out.
France will host the next World Cup. They will be favourites to win it. Friction burns can work just as well as well-oiled consensus.
Nobody has generated more sparks than Clive Woodward. When you see the strength of rugby in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, you have to marvel at what he achieved in his seven years. At the energy he poured into making people and institutions change.
The key, I think, is not any sudden eruption of love for football, but the length of his spell in charge of England rugby. Seven years. It's a hell of a long time; more than enough for the most sanguine of mortals, let alone someone decidedly itchy of feet. Perhaps Sir C should have gone last December, with goodwill raining down on him. As it is, he goes in a shower of sparks, flouncing big. In friction-based systems, it's the only way to go.
