The important fact is that you couldn’t fault the Lions players for commitment and guts

The important fact is that you couldn’t fault the Lions players for commitment and guts. They played against probably the best Test side for years, and came up a couple of inches short.” I invite him to speculate on England’s chances when Australia arrive here in November He declines. “It’s dangerous to talk about Australia,” he says.”There’s the small matter of Ireland first [on 20 October in Dublin], and it’s very dangerous for any sportsman to look beyond the next game. Ireland is a much more important game than Australia, because there’s a Grand Slam at stake and we’ve wasted our last two opportunities of nailing a Grand Slam.” He will be fully involved in the build-up to the game, he adds.”Clive [Woodward, the England coach] recognises that if someone has a long-term injury but is still expected to be challenging for a place in the future, it makes sense to keep that player involved.” Dallaglio and Woodward are firm friends, albeit a friendship that was briefly tested when the England players threatened to go on strike last winter over remuneration.

Woodward stood firmly by Dallaglio in the aftermath of the tabloid allegations that he had been involved in drug-taking on the 1997 Lions tour to South Africa, and Dallaglio will be forever grateful.”In fairness, he didn’t have to support me. It’s not easy to keep things in perspective when your name is blasted across the front pages. You have to keep sanity in your own mind, and in the minds of those around you, and Clive helped me do that. I like to think that I’ve tried to repay him on the pitch.”Ah, the pitch Let’s talk about the pitch. What, I wonder, are the moments he most cherishes? “Running out at Twickenham in ‘95 for my debut against South Africa Captaining England for the first time, against Australia Playing for the Lions in South Africa in ‘97 There are all sorts of individual moments But they’re for reflection when you’ve finished your career It’s something for the end of the journey.

Because success is like fresh fruit, it needs to be replaced every week, and the players who bear that in mind, rather than wallowing in self-esteem, are the players who move forward. For example, I’m not assuming that I will come straight back and reclaim my place. I’ll probably start playing for Wasps thirds, then Wasps seconds, before getting slowly back into international contention.”Wasps and Dallaglio have recently been wrestling with the question of who pays him, for the club stopped his wages when he got injured playing for the Lions – as he concedes that they were entitled to do according to the terms of his contract Unfortunately, the Lions did not cough up, either. “It was an unfortunate incident and I don’t think professional sportsmen should be treated like that,” he says darkly, when I raise the subject. “You work incredibly hard to get yourself on tour, and when you get home you find you’ve got to wait three or four months to get paid, because the Lions contract was such that they don’t start paying you until August Anyway, the issue’s resolved now. Hopefully it won’t happen again.”On the whole, Dallaglio adds, this is a time of genuine optimism for English rugby, on and off the field. “There is at last a real partnership between the clubs and the RFU [Rugby Football Union],” he says.But there are still flaws in the way the game is administered.

And so I ask what he would do if he were allowed to exert as much influence over the game’s ruling bodies as he does over the England pack? “I would initiate more consultation with the players over all the issues, the laws and everything. The game is changing rapidly, and without tapping into the people actually playing it, the IRB [International Rugby Board] might take the game to the wrong place. Each country’s union has two representatives who go and sit on the IRB. They pass these resolutions which then filter down, but I think there should be a vehicle for filtering information up. Because there are still a number of fundamental issues that need sorting.”Such as? “Such as finance.

We have five or six very good teams in the world, and a number who need money to get better. The World Cup generates a phenomenal amount of money.” Dallaglio’s greeny-brown eyes flash suggestively. “I would love to know where it goes.” This eloquence, and forthrightness, is now being deployed by the BBC, who have made Dallaglio a radio and television analyst at least until his knee is back to full strength. Moreover, although he fully expects to be back to his playing best, if not better, by next spring, he says that his long lay-off has forced him to consider his post-rugby future, which ideally will include more media work.”I’m mindful that there are always other players coming through, that you can be replaced by someone who’s just finished, but I do enjoy talking about the game, and I think that once you’ve been on the battlefield yourself you can offer a decent perspective.