Woodward guilty of debasing the Lions

He would enter a plea of not guilty, but the unanimous verdict of the jury would be a guilty.

Whatever the brilliance of the All Blacks, Woodward sent the Lions team which he coaches into the Test series dreadfully under-prepared with effectively one arm tied behind their backs.

Odds which were difficult to begin with became impossible directly because of Woodward's gross mismanagement.

Don't just take my word for it, listen to former Lions greats like Irish giant Willie John McBride and the imperious JPR Williams.

They've both forgotton more about the British Lions and what they mean than Woodward has ever learned. They have both claimed Woodward doesn't know what he's doing, adding that they are by no means alone in that view.

For a start, to take an initial 45 players, swelled by injuries to 50, was absolutely ridiculous.

Woodward claimed he wanted to keep his likely Test team fresh to take on the All Blacks, but there were only half-a-dozen build-up games anyway, half the number of previous tours.

And it meant there was no chance of giving his likely Test line-up the opportunity to play together, to get to know one another before going into the real battle.

He had to give every player on tour a start and because there were so many either some were going to be vastly under-used - poor Gareth Cooper has begun just one game for example - while it also meant there was absolutely no chance of forming any kind of team spirit and pattern of play.

Instead of that, Woodward almost certainly settled on his team for the first Test before the over-sized party ever left these shores.

And that plan was to rely on the England old-timers who had won the World Cup almost two years earlier, but significantly without Martin Johnson who at least was wise enough to finish while he was still ahead.

Woodward's policy was clearly flawed from the start as England's old-timers couldn't live with the new-look All Blacks who had obviously moved on whereas Woodward was stuck in the past, clinging to an ideal that was dead in the water.

Even then some of his selections were at best bizarre, at worst ridiculous.

Where was the logic in switching Josh Lewsey to the wing when he had been outstanding at full back and putting Jason Robinson at full back when he had joined the tour late?

How misguided was it to parachute Jonny Wilkinson into the team at inside centre when he hadn't played there for six years?

Why pick basically an England pack only to put the Ireland hooker in with them? The list is endless. Woodward did suffer his share of misfortune in losing both Lawrence Dallaglio and Brian O'Driscoll, but his whole policy was fatally flawed.

Then, come the second Test, it was all change when in an admission of failure Woodward made 11 changes, some positional, and expected it all to fall into place overnight against the best team in the world.

He belatedly decided to include more Welsh players when he should have done it first time around rather than completely ignore what happened in last season's RBS Six Nations Championship.

To claim that banging the Welsh drum was bigotry was plain daft when really it was common sense to base the team around form rather than reputation.

But even after rectifying his mistake Woodward still made glaring errors. After including Dwayne Peel, Gareth Thomas and Gavin Henson, plus Shane Williams, he then put Jonny Wilkinson in the middle of them.

And this time Woodward fielded two Irish locks only to play the England hooker. Ryan Jones at least started, but he should have been there in the first Test.

So whereas Woodward's Plan A failed badly, Plan B was an utter mishmash. It may well be that the All Blacks on current form would have won the series anyway, but Woodward gave these Lions no chance at all. He claimed they were the best prepared Lions of all time when they were, in fact, the worst prepared.

And how could Woodward possibly expect so many different coaches to gel and work as one unit when privately some of his Celtic cousins must have disagreed with what he was doing?

But perhaps the biggest abuse of the Lions ethos, tradition and history was the way Woodward included media spin doctor Alastair Campbell in his entourage, elevated him to a major role on the tour and even stuck a Lions jersey on him.

Woodward has demeaned the Lions jersey by giving it to so many players and he has cheapened it even further by giving it to off-field people who have no right to wear it and even less right to be on the tour in the first place.

Flipping the coin over a little, even if the All Blacks have buried the Lions on the field, even if they have unearthed some stunning players like Dan Carter and Sitiveni Sivivatu, it has to be said they flagrantly break the rules.

They commit just about every rugby crime in the book - going over the top, hands in the ruck, blatant obstruction, even downright blocking, but they seem to get away with it. Would they with a strict Northern Hemisphere referee?

And as for being one nation, don't make me laugh.

How many genuine New Zealanders are in their team?

As Graham Henry said when he was in charge of Wales, the All Blacks include Polynesians and even Chinese and Eskimos.

Some things don't change, so even if the Lions are about to be blackwashed, fulfilling my pre-tour doom and gloom prediction, they are not all-white either.

But then neither is Sir Clive Woodward. How Mike Ruddock must be glad he turned down the invitation to be part of this fiasco.