Woodward's Touring Blues Brothers

One Last Gig 16/04/05

They play in red, but these are the Blues Brothers Lions. Sir Clive is getting the band back together. Age, apparently, is an irrelevance, and players like Back and Dallaglio are indispensable because they’ve been there and done that. Well so has Gareth Edwards, but he must have missed the cut because he’s Welsh.

Woodward was always a bit of a drama queen, as his farewell press conference at Twickenham demonstrated. He’s not just a manager, his petulance can suggest, he’s an artist. And with his famed powers of organisation, Woodward most resembles an artistic film director, with the Lions 2005 the third and final act in his self-defining blockbuster.

Back in 2003, in the first reel, his English warriors overcame daunting odds to inspire a nation. In the darker second act they lost their collective spark under new management, and several soloists disappeared into destructive long-term relationships with physiotherapists and Sue Barker. Now, only their manager can bring back the days of glory, by getting the band back together for one last gig. Their motivation? To help Bod save the world from evil, and in this particular script New Zealand are the baddies. Of course they are. They wear black.

Despite creaking knees and a lack of practice, the band re-forms. They fight their demons. The endearingly depressive Steve Thompson, after a shocking season with England, learns to stop worrying about what exactly he has to do not to get selected. If he actually hits his line-out jumpers might Woodie change his mind and drop him? Oh, the worry. Matt Dawson resolves not to sing out of tune when he’s relegated to the dirt-trackers (unfortunately, the been-there-and-done-that ledger includes more than just winning). Gormless Ian Balshaw works out why he’s in the band in the first place, and Will Greenwood can’t remember the words but he’ll hum it.

While such optimism is in the ascendancy, lets ask Woodie’s favourite lighting man to swing the same soft filter of wish-fulfilment over the remainder of the domestic season. Worcester stay in the Premiership, and next year so do Bristol, thus snipping the buttons from the suits of the men who want to ring-fence the Premiership. It’s true that relegation isn’t good business, but most of us suffer enough ‘good business practice’ every week from Monday to Friday. On Saturdays we want some sport.

Leicester will win the European Cup final, but not the Zurich play-offs, because that would be greedy. The IRB then announces ahead of schedule that RWC 2011 will go to Japan. All this will come to pass, as an uplifting backstory to the Lions, because Woodie only gets involved in wide-screen films with happy endings. This is no place for an objective observer to point out that his pick-up team from three top-tier professional rugby nations (and Scotland) ought to be able to beat one other rugby nation with a population smaller than central London.

It’s more fun hiding behind Woodie’s visionary camera, trying to follow his storyboards. The Lions go unbeaten through all the provincial games except one (local glory where it’s due). On the eve of the deciding third Test, Woodward’s last fully-fit second-row slips on a bar of soap. Woodward sets out on a frantic high-speed quest through night-time Auckland until he finds a very large man in the corner of a shadowy piano-bar, fedora pulled low, chewing on the end of his pencil as he composes his latest newspaper column.

From under the wide brim of the hat there comes a low, gravely voice. ‘Clive. I heard you got the band back together.’

‘Not quite, big man.’

The shadowed giant flickers his single eyebrow, and puts down his pencil. ‘I’m retired.’

‘I’ve brought you this. It’s a crazy idea.’

Sir Clive holds out a red jersey, and a huge scarred hand turns it over to see the 4 on the back, and, above the number, the name JOHNSON. Johnno stands up, a twinkle in his flinty eye. ‘Crazy,’ he says, crunching the shirt in his fist, ‘but it might just work.’

This is the great thing about Sir Clive Woodward, motion picture director of the British and Irish Lions. He can make you believe anything’s possible.