Woodward must be willing to embrace spirit of adventure

All Black opposition offers England manager perfect opportunity to make big decisions prior to next year's World Cup

This time next year, Clive Woodward's place in the great sporting scheme of things will be established for good or ill: he will be viewed either as English rugby's Bill Gates, or as its David Brent. Harsh, but true. Woodward has achieved a good deal during his five-year stewardship of the red rose army ­ for starters, he broke new ground by persuading the notorious tight-wads of Twickenham to spend a few bob in pursuit of excellence ­ but ultimately, he will stand or fall by his team's performance in the 2003 World Cup.

A less resilient, perhaps less fortunate man would have been judged on the last World Cup in 1999; Woodward volunteered himself for that fate in one of his more misguided public pronouncements and could not have complained too bitterly had he been taken at his word. But he was entirely right to stay on following England's quarter-final blow-out against the Springboks in Paris. In terms of his energy and enthusiasm, his eclectic mix of left-field strategic vision and off-beat selection, he was, and remains, ahead of the game and ahead of the pack.

He will not receive the soft-soap treatment a second time, though: by the time England fly to Perth for the serious business in 11 months' time, their campaign will have been a full four years in the planning. And the most crucial stage of that preparation begins in Surrey tomorrow, when Woodward and his inner circle ­ Andy Robinson and Phil Larder ­ weigh up the evidence from this afternoon's Premiership fixtures, field the reports from the Sabbath fixtures at Newcastle and Leeds (games they would far rather were not taking place), inwardly digest the final orthopaedic bulletin and decide on their starting line-up for the one-off Test against New Zealand at Twickenham next weekend.

You will not catch Woodward breathing a word about next autumn: the manager has been in "one game at a time" mode for months now and were it not for the occasional stream-of-consciousness outpouring ­ entertaining and confusing in equal measure ­ he would be very nearly as clichéd as the next national coach or manager. But the World Cup is at the forefront of his mind, as his latest squad selection demonstrates.

Having asked 12 of England's brightest young talents (plus Henry Paul, who is a bright old talent) to blaze a trail at the new national academy under the inspirational guidance of Brian Ashton, he barely drew breath before promoting four of them ­ Phil Christophers, Marcel Garvey, James Simpson-Daniel and James Forrester ­ to the 30-man senior squad for this month's matches with the All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks. These newcomers, aged between 19 and 22, can expect to travel to Australia, form and fitness willing.

Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine a World Cup back division along the following lines: Jason Robinson at full-back, Garvey or Dan Luger on the right wing, Christophers or Ben Cohen on the left, Simpson-Daniel and Will Greenwood at centre, and three explosive game-breakers ­ Iain Balshaw, Austin Healey and Charlie Hodgson ­ on the bench, covering every position from nine to 15. It is also tempting to think of Forrester and Lewis Moody wreaking complementary havoc from the sides of the scrum, with Lawrence Dallaglio or Richard Hill providing whatever cement is deemed necessary to hold the thing together.

The question is this: when will Woodward make the big calls? Now, against the southern hemisphere tourists, or in the new year, when the Six Nations kicks in? Unless he goes all conservative on us, as he did in '99 by omitting Jonny Wilkinson from England's starting line-up against the Boks, either Christophers or Simpson-Daniel will play against New Zealand. As recently as 15 days ago, Christophers was ahead of his rival by the hair of a single nostril: the Bristol wing had enjoyed a convincing, try-scoring Test debut in Argentina during the summer, and had made high-voltage contribution to his club's Premiership victory over Leicester, watched by half the national hierarchy.

But Simpson-Daniel had barely been seen out of doors at that point. The moment he was given a start in the Gloucester side, in Viadana on 18 October, there was a shift of focus. Three tries against the Italians, followed by some wonderfully instinctive touches in a tight and bruising rumble at Wasps last weekend, reintroduced him to the wider public and reminded them of what they already knew: that his natural ability measures at least 9.5 on the Guscott Scale, and possibly more. Up Kingsholm way, the local hard-heads have him inked in for his first cap. They may not be far wrong.

That, though, is the easy bit for Woodward. The forward selection is both more complicated and more uncomfortable, involving as it does a number of players who have served England magnificently in recent seasons. Graham Rowntree, Dorian West, Ben Kay and Neil Back are all under pressure, as was Dallaglio until he pressed the right buttons at the right time in front of the right people in the Wasps-Gloucester game. It is in this area that Woodward must earn his handsome RFU salary, for it is here that he finds his closest advisers split down the middle.

Robinson, his assistant coach, won his international honours as an open-side flanker, and he knows the position backwards. In his view, Hill of Saracens is the best-equipped breakaway in the English game ­ an opinion shared by at least 50 per cent of Premiership coaches. Larder, the former Great Britain rugby league coach and Woodward's defensive specialist, swears by Back and will defend him until his dying breath. He once described the Leicester man as the best pound-for-pound tackler he had witnessed in either rugby code, and has long used him as his defensive "captain".

Now in his 34th year but as fit as a butcher's dog, Back turned it on for the watching red rose contingent at Vicarage Road last Sunday, thereby underlining Woodward's problem: if England leave it to the diminutive Lion to make life easy for them by under-performing, they may still be waiting come the 2007 World Cup. Yet a Moody-Hill partnership would be more flexible than anything involving Back, and a unit involving the mesmerically unpredictable Forrester might put England at the cutting edge of the modern game.

For two very good reasons, both to do with his next opponents, Woodward should make it new and make it now. To begin with, England have nothing to fear from the All Black pack next weekend, because the real All Black pack is back home in New Zealand. Half of this third-string unit will be as new to international rugby as the uncapped Forrester, so there is no reason not to take the adventurous approach.

Secondly, the tourists are travelling as light as they are precisely because John Mitchell, who preceded Robinson in the England number two job before striking All Black gold, made his bold moves a year ago. Before Mitchell took charge, the New Zealand back row featured Troy Flavell, Taine Randell and Ron Cribb. Within weeks of his appointment, Reuben Thorne had been installed as blind-side flanker and captain, Scott Robertson was chosen at No 8 and Richie McCaw was picked from the back end of beyond as an open side. All three hit the spot, McCaw so effectively that he is now regarded as the most potent breakaway in the world ­ and that includes George Smith and Olivier Magne.

Quite clearly, Woodward is tempted to do something similar: why else include Forrester in the senior squad, five months after he was considered too green for the summer tour of Argentina? At the very least, he is worthy of a bench place at Twickenham a week today. And if he is granted as much when the team is announced on Monday, one of Back, Moody, Hill or Dallaglio will have to go. Painful.