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Bob Woolmer, South Africa's coach, held a cricket audience of about 2,000 - among them many expert coaches - enthralled as he delivered a lecture entitled Patterns For Success at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham yesterday.

Next Monday an England and Wales Cricket Board working party, with a desperate need to establish any pattern for success, will be discussing Woolmer's name as they draw up a short list for the vacant England coach's job.

Woolmer's presentation at the Rover World Cricket Coaches Conference, which included how to detect and deal with decay in a professional team, illustrated his ability to analyse and draw ideas together.

If England want his efficiency, Lord MacLaurin's ECB panel will probably have to create a super-coach position at Test level for the Englishman, releasing him from close year-round involvement, or contract him as a consultant.

The only query over Woolmer would be his enthusiasm. ``I need to take a break,'' he said yesterday, ``and as for 'do I want to do it again?' I don't know the answer to that question.''

Woolmer said that Warwickshire had asked for ``first refusal'' on his services and, while money was not the driving force, he needed to know what the England terms would be. ``While it's a prime job in English cricket, it's a tough one, especially as I've been in the South Africa job for five years,'' he added.

One extract from his analysis of decay detection seemed to have an echo in county cricket. ``The team get over-confident,'' he told delegates. ``They discuss money, they discuss sponsored cars, they ask where are their team shirts, they're not keen on practising.

``Then the downward spiral. People fail, they are at a very low ebb and they aren't really working very hard. There's something wrong with the system. You realise it's rotten to the core.''