The Dallaglio question is 'when' not 'if'

Andy Robinson had better get in touch some time soon, or the closest Lawrence Dallag-lio will get to crossing swords with the All Blacks next month is over a knife and fork at a benefit dinner for the Wasps' forwards coach, Craig Dowd. As Dallaglio begins to run out of euphemisms to describe his desire to return to England duty, Robinson retains the final call. Only when his name lights up on the former captain's mobile phone will the blue touch-paper be lit on Dallaglio's return to the Test arena.

On Friday night Dallaglio came through a full 80 minutes of his first match for Wasps since he broke his ankle on tour with the British and Irish Lions in June. He was serenaded from the Causeway Stadium stands by the Wasps supporters, who set his name to the first line of "La Donna è Mobile". But if woman can be fickle, as the song tells us, so too can England coaches. Dallaglio was asked for the umpteenth time about revers-ing his Test retirement of 13 months ago and he replied: "Ask any player, and if your national coach phones up it's like being asked to go to war. You don't turn it down."

The problem is that Robinson is refusing to rush into the role of Lord Kitchener. Does his country need Dallaglio? Only last week Robinson - who has installed Leicester's Martin Corry as captain for the autumn - admitted he had spoken to Dallaglio when they were in New Zealand about ending his self-imposed exile, but he still appears to be leaving the ball in the court of the man who captained England from 1997 to 1999 and again in 2004.

"I'd love Lawrence Dallag-lio to put himself forward," said Robinson. "He's a great player. But everything's got to be right for him and right for us. That's down to the discussions that we have; at the right time we'll be having those discussions. I had them on the Lions tour but I felt that in particular for Lawrence it's right that he get back playing from his injury... Martin Corry has led the side brilliantly, and his performances last year were excep-tional. In actual fact I thought he was unlucky on the Lions trip to lose his place."

Dowd's dinner is to be held at the All Blacks' London hotel four days before New Zealand meet England at Twickenham, with guests from Wasps and the touring party. He is expecting Dallaglio to attend rather than be in camp with England midway through a series which also features Australia and Samoa. And, in any case, even if Dallaglio has to bide his time until the Six Nations' Championship in the new year, how exactly does a man unretire, for want of a much better word?

"There are no practicalities or formalities," said Simon Cohen, the lawyer now employed by Leicester who last year helped draw up the contract which covers the England players' image rights. "Lawrence can play for England without assigning any rights to them, although as a strong supporter of the current concept of the players acting together, I am sure he would."

Dallaglio has been a full-time professional for 10 years, and earned a six-figure sum from his testimonial season in 2003-04. He probably doesn't need the £8,000 per match earned by an England player, but he would need to sign the contract if the Rugby Football Union wanted to use his image on, say, a brochure for the soon-to-be-built South Stand Hotel at Twickenham.

So much for commercial considerations. Dallaglio's personal life has commanded attention too, with recent reports that he is to marry his long-term partner, Alice, next year, having repaired a troubled relationship. An unexpected benefit of Dallaglio's injury was that he and Alice were able to holiday with their three children in the summer. They stayed in Marseilles at the hotel used by England in the build-up to the 2003 World Cup, where Dallaglio played every minute of every match.

And so it was against the Blues, with Dallaglio pacing himself to the point of judiciously avoiding a tackle on Cardiff's big lock Craig Quinnell late on. The Wasps chairman, Chris Wright, was enter- taining the ex-jockey Willie Carson, and with the club's head coach, Ian McGeechan, around Dallaglio was in the unusual position of putting smiles on the face of a couple of Scots. There was barely a ball-carry in anger, and the returnee was helped hugely by the coruscating form of his back-row colleagues, Johnny O'Connor and Joe Worsley.

"Lawrence is in solid shape," said O'Connor. "The pre-match was the same old standard, he really talks it up. I've never been in with Martin Johnson, but Lawrence is the best captain I've ever had. There was a ridiculous pace to the first 15 minutes and he must have been praying, 'Please kick the ball out'. But he'll be sharp soon enough and if he's playing well you can't see why he couldn't play for England in November."

Dallaglio doesn't tend to do the bench - only seven of his 266 career appearances for Wasps have been as a substitute - but a further complication is that he and Corry prefer the same position.

"Lawrence will probably start the next two matches, against Sale and Edinburgh," said McGeechan, who has the Heineken Cup tie with Toulouse on 30 October uppermost in his thoughts. England were represented on Friday by Chris Spice, the RFU's performance director. It will be a bit of a performance, all right, if they ignore Dallaglio for much longer.