When I took a phone call early last week from a French radio station who wanted to find out what I thought about rumours that Clive Woodward would be resigning, I thought it was a You've Been Framed type of joke, and told them so, adding that over here in England you frequently get these sorts of ill-founded stories in the tabloid press.
So the joke is now on me, if not on English rugby, which was completely unprepared for Woodward's exit. Surprised though we may have been last week, there is actually a certain logic to it. Woodward clearly saw that he would not be given what he wanted by the clubs, he's just lost a hugely influential generation of players - Back, Leonard, Johnson, Dallaglio - and he faced having to start from the bottom and build up but without the power he wanted.
There's another rational side to it: I saw the salary that Sir Clive was on, and I was astounded. £1m over four years is not much more than a seriously good Premiership player might make. That cannot have made the prospect of the same grind in more difficult conditions any easier to stomach.
Ironically, I'm not actually convinced that the training days that Sir Clive was getting so miffed about are actually all that worthwhile, because if you play on Sunday for your club, it's debatable how much you can achieve on Monday, which is when they tend to be. The ideal, of course, would be to have a rational calendar, with internationals cordoned off from club games.
As far as the succession goes, my preferred candidate would be Nigel Melville, with Woodward's right-hand man Andy Robinson staying on as assistant. I think Melville offers similar qualities to those of Sir Clive, but without the eccentricities and some of the management-speak. He's a manager rather than a hands-on coach, whose strength at Gloucester has been bringing in the right guys to deal with the specialist areas. Melville is charismatic, good at handling the press and has a good reputation for what he has achieved at Wasps and Gloucester.
What of the other candidates? Robinson is the clear successor, he knows how the system works, he knows the players inside out and how the politics of the RFU work, but he's more of a hands-on coach than a manager. Rob Andrew would be ideal, as he has the vision and is an emblematic figure, but he has ruled himself out. Looking abroad Warren Gatland would be a really strong England manager, given the machine he has created at Wasps and his international credentials, but I can't see him wanting to leave High Wycombe. If I was feeling mischievous, I would suggest Philippe Saint- André, as he made huge strides at Gloucester and Bourgoin, but I imagine national pride would not countenance him.
Whoever comes in, it's a poisoned chalice without those experienced players. There is no shortage of quality players in the Premiership who can come through to replace them, but for now, it's almost a case of building the team from scratch.
It won't be simple, because expectations are so massive since the World Cup, and if the team continues to lose, the pressure will be on from the newspapers. It's actually at this time that that nucleus of senior players - Johnson, Back, Dallaglio - would have been really influential. Their input into the choice of a new coach would have been valuable - not by naming the man but simply by making their voices heard - and when the new man takes over, he will miss those elder statesmen as he makes the transition.
What of Sir Clive now? I'm not sure he faces an easy task in moving into soccer, although there are certain clubs in the Premiership that deploy the rugby tactic of kick, chase and hope, grabbing the ball and hoofing it up field as far as they can. I did hear one good point made by a radio station: at least he will be able to teach David James to hold on to the ball.
