Jack’s philosophy? Win today, win tomorrow…

PETER JACKSON

THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW

Of all the enduring memories from Jack Rowell’s tumultuous time in charge of England, two stand out, each forever frozen in time on a faraway shore.

For all their historical significance, neither would have had a prayer of making the cut for any greatest hits compilation as chosen by the man himself; the only coach to win five consecutive English Premiership titles long before Pep Guardiola cottoned on to the idea of serial success albeit on a grander scale.

The first imperishable Rowell memory, in Cape Town on June 28, 1995, heralded the crushing of the Hartlepool Rover’s only crack at the World Cup. The second, in Sydney two years later, tolled the bell on his time with England. Both events had a common denominator in that each had gone spinning out of his control.

One week after knocking Australia off their global pedestal, England lined up against the All Blacks in a manner which suggested they didn’t know what was coming their way in the shape of Jonah Lomu. Rowell could see exactly what was about to happen a minute or so before it came to pass but could do nothing about it.

Picture the scene.

The referee, Belfast headmaster Stephen Hilditch, awaits the final countdown to the semi-final. The All Black forwards line up to the right. Andrew Mehrtens shapes to put the kick-off within their grasp but his body language tells Rowell that the fly-half will pirouette and chip the ball towards Lomu lurking unmarked on the opposite wing.

Rowell, trapped in the middle of a row directly in front of the press-box, shouts in the forlorn hope that someone in an England tracksuit on the touchline barely ten metres away will hear him. In the bedlam of a raucous Newlands, nobody does. Nor can Rowell for all his gesticulation attract anyone’s attention.

Hilditch blows his whistle, Mehrtens duly switches the kick-off and plunges England into instantaneous confusion. Will Carling and Tony Underwood run into each other, their collision unleashing a trail of mayhem which ends with Lomu swotting off two opponents and running over a third for the first of his four tries.

Fast forward two years to the Manly Pacific Hotel where Rowell’s

England are based for a one-off Test in Sydney. Don Rutherford, the RFU’s technical director, is also there or he was before making a mysterious exit for what was meant to be a secret mission.

He scurried off to Auckland for a meeting with Graham Henry, to find out whether Auckland’s head coach would be interested in running England. Meanwhile back in Sydney, Rowell, told as a matter of courtesy of the story about to break back home, was adamant that he knew nothing of such a move.

The next day the Wallabies beat England 25-6, unsurprisingly so given that the Test had been staged without a thought for player-welfare straight after the victorious Lions’ tour of South Africa. It would be the Oxford University’s scholar last stand.

“As a businessman, Rowell chaired several companies in the private and public sector”

A chartered accountant, Rowell had made a name for himself as a captain of industry. As chief executive of Golden Wonder Foods, he saw a gap in the market and filled it thanks to the public’s ravenous reception of the new product, the Pot Noodle.

As an executive director of the global food and utilities giant, Dalgety, Rowell also chaired several companies in the private and public sector. That he could keep all those plates spinning and still find the time to create a rugby empire at Bath for nothing more than the love of the game says everything about his high-powered endurance.

Running England for three years as manager-cum-head coach meant raising that endurance to new heights. He took it all in his stride, clocking up around 50,000 miles in all kinds of weather and only a few of them in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

Nobody at Bath in the glory days knew him better than Nigel Redman, from a 17-year-old novice to an international second row for England and the Lions. “I admired Jack for many reasons but I admired him most of all because he was always there,’’ says Redman. “In his 11 years at Bath, he never used his position as a captain of industry as an excuse for missing a training session. The older I get, the more I realise the amount of pressure he put himself under. He always found time for the club and the players.’’

As a coach, the Pot Noodle king, always a sharp student of the round ball game, was more Arsene Wenger than Sir Alex Ferguson. “Jack got players to look at the game differently,’’ says Redman. “He coached by asking questions, constantly setting challenges and problems and letting the players work their way to finding a solution.

“It wasn’t for the faint-hearted. Although Jack was incredibly demanding, he was never an autocratic coach and that worked for me. He was very bright and incredibly wise. He got the best out of people but the team always came first and if that meant dropping someone, Jack never let sentiment get in the way.’’

Redman discovered that for himself when Rowell’s England played Romania at Twickenham in November 1994, their first match after the drawn series in South Africa that summer. The way ‘Ollie’ tells it, the conversation went like this.

Impressive: Jack Rowell shall forever be remembered as a colossus of the English game

PICTURE: Getty Images

“Just want to let you know you’re not playing on Saturday.’’

“Why’s that, Jack?’’

“I’ve decided to go with the team that went really well in South Africa.’’ “Jack, I was in that team.’’

“Oh. Yes….’’

Rowell may have put the phone down on that conversation but anyone who knew him discovered, sooner rather than later, his mastery of the withering put down.

When another England player asked why some people took an instant dislike to him, Rowell answered in four words: “Because it saves time.’’

“On international front, Rowell won almost 75 per cent of his 27 Tests in charge of England”

In Argentina with England during the summer of 1997, the Lions needed a second row to replace an injured Doddie Weir. “We were in Buenos Aires and wondering who the Lions wanted when Jack said, face to face: ‘They want you’.

“I said: ‘Jack, I can’t believe that’. And he said: ‘Neither can I’.

“We just laughed and I packed my bags for South Africa.’’

By then the RFU had begun their belated search for their first national coach of the professional era. Rowell was far too smart to abandon his business life on the off-chance of getting the job.

He sat tight and waited. Rutherford’s report on his meeting with Henry did not develop into a concrete offer. Instead they approached two future knights of the realm, Ian McGeechan and Clive Woodward.

Still, Rowell refused to recognise the inevitable and formally stand down. He found it impossible, in his words, to ‘let go’.

Resting on his laurels was not an option. Heaven knows, he had more than enough to cater for a frame stretching to 6ft 7in. As well as the five straight championship titles at Bath, there were ten English Cup finals, every one a winner starting with two for Gosforth (1976, 1977).

The eight that followed for Bath included six in a row starting with Bristol in 1984. When his team scraped home 10-9, Rowell was nowhere to be seen anywhere inside Twickenham.

“I was in the car park,’’ he said. “I asked a policeman for the score after the game was over. He looked at me suspiciously and said: ‘Why? Don’t you know?’’

He didn’t. Something similar happened during another close encounter a season or two later at Orrell he spent the final minutes pacing up and down at a nearby railway station.

The habit didn’t change with England. After one nail-biting home win, Rowell left his seat and went walk-about as if admitting: “I can’t stand much more of this.’’

Some dared to call him ‘Jittery Jack’, a jibe which he dismissed with a smile or a scowl depending on his mood. From start to finish, Rowell based his entire philosophy on a rigid motto: Win today, win tomorrow.

Having mopped up every major title on the domestic front, he carried that winning mentality onto the world stage, winning almost 75 per cent of his 27 Tests with England.

Jack Rowell, OBE, who died last Monday after a long illness at the age of 87, shall forever be remembered for achievements as towering as the man himself, truly a colossus of the English game.