Dallaglio's winning blend of fire and ice

Four-and-a-half years down the road, Lawrence Dallaglio has just about moved on. Every once in a while, he is publicly reminded of where he might have been had he not allowed himself to be sucked in, suckered back out and left dangling in the cold morning air by a tabloid sex-and-drugs sting of unprecedented malice, but his response these days consists of an ironic smile and a wisecrack. "What does Martin Johnson bring to the side as captain?" Dallaglio was asked yesterday. "A couple of needless penalties," he replied.

The fact that Johnson was sitting two seats away and almost fell off his chair laughing reinforced what everyone close to the camp knew years ago, and what everyone who would like to talk up a rift between the two senior professionals fears is the case: that Dallaglio accepts the status quo and sees his fellow Test Lion for what he is - namely, the most authoritative captain in the world game. "I have huge respect for him," he said, by way of confirmation. "There is a strong desire among us all to do as well as possible, and Martin leads us in that. What he has achieved is a reflection of that leadership."

Of course, it is perfectly possible that Johnson would not have captained England at all - not for any length of time, at least - had Dallaglio kept his nose clean and his mouth shut. At the time of his ill-advised flirtation with the popular prints, the good-time Londoner from a home devastated by the tragic loss of one of their own - Dallaglio's sister died in the Marchioness disaster on the Thames - was preparing to lead his country into the 1999 World Cup campaign, having just won the domestic knock-out title with his beloved Wasps. In the space of a few hours, that prospect was strictly past tense. He has not been first out of the international tunnel since.

Happily, he remains every bit as committed to the cause as he was in the autumn of 1997, when Clive Woodward, fresh to the England coaching job, offered him the captaincy - officially on a game-by-game basis, but in reality for as long as Dallaglio made a half-decent fist of it. Last Sunday, as the rain swept in off the Pacific and the anthems rang out before the semi-final with France, he was in tears; a hard man strung out by the emotional extremes of a global sporting occasion. Nobody, but nobody, cares more than he.

"Some people suggest otherwise these days, but there is clearly a large element of emotion in rugby and, yes, I was moved," he admitted. "This is a physical, aggressive game in which you must assert yourself on your opponents, and while it is essential to think clearly and correctly in the heat of battle, I find it difficult to see how you can play winning rugby without bringing some passion on to the field with you.

"It's a question of balance, isn't it? We put the French under real pressure on Sunday, and you don't dominate players like theirs unless you are running hot. But we also had the cool discipline to maintain that pressure in the right areas of the field. If you have both strings, you can go a long way."

Dallaglio occasionally lost his grip on that sense of balance, most notably in the Five Nations' Championship defeat by Wales at Wembley in 1999, when his blurred decision-making contributed to the loss of a Grand Slam. And there were signs early in this tournament that he was trying too hard to impress, attempting to make the right things happen at the wrong speed.

With Richard Hill hamstrung on the sidelines, Dallaglio and Neil Back struggled to exert their customary expertise on the Springbok unit of Corné Krige, Joe van Niekerk and Juan Smith. Eight days later, they were run ragged for far too long by the supremely expansive Samoans, Semo Sititi and Maurie Fa'asavalu.

Back was rested for the fish-in-a-barrel match with Uruguay the following week, but Dallaglio was ordered to play - almost, it seemed, as a punishment for two below-par contributions. He was not even given a consolatory run as captain, an honour that passed to Phil Vickery, the Gloucester prop. Woodward explained his decision thus: "Lawrence has had a couple of quiet matches, and I want him to concentrate on his own game." Ouch.

Predictably, Dallaglio did not throw a party to celebrate being singled out for criticism in so glaring a fashion; equally predictably, he absorbed the blow and came back fighting. Uruguay felt the sharp side of him, even though their own No 8, Rodrigo Capo, went with his celebrated rival every step of the way.

When England played in too loose a fashion against Wales in the first half of their quarter-final in Brisbane, Dallaglio was one of those who understood the need for a tighter, less generous approach after the break. He had been pleading for a fortnight for more restricted, more intelligent lines of attack from his half-backs and midfield, and finally, he got them.

A keen student of opposing loose forwards - when called on for an occasional stint in the broadcasting booth, he invariably turns up with comprehensive research notes and a well-rehearsed grasp of even the most unpronounceable names - he is now turning his attention to the unique challenge posed by the Wallaby back row, which features a big ball-carrying No 8 in the Dallaglio mould, David Lyons, and a pair of scuttling little open-side specialists in George Smith and Phil Waugh.

"People compare back rows against back rows all the time, which I suppose is natural," the Englishman said. "But an awful lot of it comes down to what goes on ahead of the loose forwards, in the tight five. Much is made of the Wallaby combination, and fair enough. But much was made of the French back row, which boasts three players of obvious world class. They found themselves on the back foot because our tight forwards put us on the front foot, and they started making mistakes.

"I'm not avoiding the question about the relative merits of the Australian loose forwards and our own; it's just that I always go back to the tight-five argument. The breakdown will be a key area in the final, as it is in every game of rugby, but if our tight forwards are winning their contest, it will be a whole lot easier for us.

"Actually, I really don't see this in terms of a contest between our back row and theirs - as a rule, we prefer to stick together as a pack rather than talk about individuals. I don't even see this match as an Aussie-England thing; it's certainly not a question of us trying to wipe a smile from Wallaby faces. This is a tournament, and one we badly want to win. We got it right against the French last weekend, and we'll have to get it right against the Wallabies this weekend to achieve our goal. That's it, really. There's nothing else."

A team man, restating the basic principles of the ultimate team sport. Back in 1999, Dallaglio said a whole lot of things that did him no credit. Yesterday, he was talking like the 24-carat sportsman he always was at heart. He was talking like a winner, too.