Where’s that Hennie le Roux cunning? It’s there in rugby league but in union only a handful of players like

Where’s that Hennie le Roux cunning? It’s there in rugby league, but (in union) only a handful of players, like Wilko (Jonny Wilkinson), have it And they are vastly outnumbered by the bulldozers I suppose you just have to evolve with the game Jason Leonard evolved five or six times in his career. He changed body shape according to what the new diet was, what the new training regime was. And I do think some of those rugby league guys are fantastic athletes.”He’s no slouch himself, of course, and is also known as one of the most tactically astute of players, yet he concedes there is still plenty he can learn from Lydon He’s a good learner, too. “My dad might give me a clip round the ear for this, but when he was England coach, with Jonathan Davies running rings round us at Cardiff Arms Park, it always made for a bloody stressful time at home.”‘Will, the autobiography of Will’ Greenwood, is published by Century. He communicates easily, he has an authoritative presence, he plainly thinks deeply about the game, and he even has impeccable family pedigree, his father having coached England for a time.”I don’t think so,” he says, when I ask whether he is likely to take that route A big chuckle. Was it aerobic, endurance-based, power-based? Whatever it was he adapted.”Greenwood, it occurs to me as I take my leave of his home, trying unsuccessfully to bodyswerve the insistent family terrier Rufus, would probably make a fine coach when he retires as a player.

We ran a move which involved me locking eyes with my opposite man, saying ‘I’m coming at you’, but it was just to create space either inside or outside me. I know they go on about union being a rubbish game, but can you not enjoy both? Is it illegal? I love my football too, and I’m a massive Man City fan. Is it illegal as a City fan to support United in Europe? It bloody shouldn’t be. That was always one of the great strengths of Clive’s teams; learning from our mistakes.” The job of rectifying some of those mistakes, at least as they affect the back division, has now passed to the former rugby league star Joe Lydon.Greenwood, a Lancastrian from the top of his head to the tips of his boots, six feet and five inches away, is a rugby league devotee, a diehard Wigan fan, and almost boyishly excited at the prospect of being coached by one of the legends of the 13-man game.”If you want a guy to come and coach you who’s got the T-shirt, then watch his 60-yard drop goals, his 95-yard tries .. instant respect for the bloke.

I bloody love rugby league, and I’d love to have played it even once.”I’d probably have got my head kicked in and been stretchered off the park, but I’d love to have had a go. He is, therefore, fully available for selection for next month’s matches against Canada, South Africa and Australia, and will, if picked, hope to turn the clock back exactly 12 months, to help to rebuild that invincibility.All of which gives us lots to talk about. And there is also the small matter of Greenwood’s recently-published autobiography, in which he writes with searing candour about the death of his baby son Freddie, and the 40,000-mile round-trip he felt compelled to make when, during the World Cup, his wife Caro started experiencing serious difficulties with her second pregnancy.His personal life, indeed, is where we start. While Caro busies herself in the adjacent kitchen, Greenwood sits in the living-room of their home in Southfields, south-west London, expressing profound concern that his book is being marketed at least partly on the back of their traumatic experience with little Freddie.”Maybe I shouldn’t have done the book,” he says. “I find it very difficult, seeing a newspaper article about Freddie, and at the end it says ‘buy the book for £17.99′.

It keeps me up at night, to be honest.” Greenwood is nothing if not honest. There is a terrific passage in his book about the England team’s journey back to the hotel following victory in the World Cup final in Sydney. At one point the coach pulled up at some traffic lights beside a bus stop, where 300 or so Australian fans stood looking utterly crestfallen. Anticipating some abuse, Greenwood and several team-mates crowded together at the window celebrating effusively and singing an obscene version of Waltzing Matilda that certainly does not involve waltzing. But far from getting the abuse they expected, they then saw the Australians, to a man, woman and child, applauding them “Whoops,” he writes.