Leader of the pack
LAWRENCE Dallaglio's future as an international rugby star was mapped out as soon as he entered the hallowed halls of Ampleforth, England's top private Catholic educational establishments a school with a massive reputation for producing everything from Cardinals to sporting captains.
In Dallaglio's case it was always likely to be the latter and at the top level. But what wasn't quite apparent was whether he would play internationally in the white of England, the green of Ireland or the blue of Italy.
An Italian father, Irish mother and the fact that he was born in England gave him a wider window of opportunity than most.
"My parents weren't rich but they did everything to provide for me and my sister Francesca and they sacrificed a lot of their own lifestyle to ensure we both got the best start in life.
"In my case, they gave me everything and the opportunity to try everything. They took me to music lessons, swimming, rugby, football. The first thing I saw when I arrived at Ampleforth was about 25 rugby pitches and nothing else.
"My dad didn't know much about rugby but I remember phoning him up and telling him I was quite keen. The first time I came home on a break, there was a book on the sideboard called The Laws of Rugby Union. His glasses were on top of it, so it showed that he was interested in me being interested."
On the international front and the battle between the three countries, Dallaglio revealed that Italy were first in with a serious claim after Dallaglio had represented England at under 19 level against the Azzuri.
"Somebody spotted the surname on the programme, phoned me up and made quite a serious financial offer, even though rugby was supposed to be amateur at that stage.
"They wanted me to go play rugby in Milan with a view to eventually representing Italy. I took that seriously at the time, flew over there, met people like David Campese and Mark Ella who were playing there at the time. I had a good look around but I just felt it was too early to make that sort of huge commitment. Obviously, I had got a taste of feeling how it was to play for England, I'd not long joined Wasps and wanted to carry on.
"Back then trying to break into the English first team was very difficult because there were so many talented back rows the likes of Dean Richards, Tim Rodber, Ben Clarke, Neil Back.
"You also have to remember that there were much fewer games. Now, a young man expecting to break in could expect to play 15 games. Some years ago there were only eight or nine games, so you would be really lucky to get one or two at my age.
"Then, out of the blue, I got a call from Noel Murphy from Ireland in early 1994. My mum, even though she was originally from Mallow, wasn't able to understand what he was getting at, but I had a good conversation and was very flattered at being given a chance to play international rugby for Ireland.
"He told me that Ireland were going on tour to Australia that summer and that there was an opportunity to play in the World Cup the following year. I took the suggestion very seriously but asked him to give me a bit of time to consider it.
"By pure co-incidence, and it was coincidence, I had a telephone call the next day from Jack Rowell, the then England coach, who said he would like to take me to South Africa with England. That sealed the deal.
"I often think, though, if I hadn't received that telephone call, I would have made a completely different decision in my life because I was getting very impatient, I was itching to play international rugby and I would have had as much right as anyone to play for Ireland.
"In hindsight, it's very easy to say I made the right decision but you never know how things work out in life and even then it took me another 18 months to make my England debut."
Before then, tragedy hit the Dallaglio family when his sister died at age 19 on the notorious 1989 Marchioness riverboat tragedy on the Thames.
"That blew our lives apart. Having Irish and Italian roots, people have to understand that our family was a very close one, it was a very emotional family, very affectionate because the Irish and Italians are not afraid to be like that. When a part of that is taken away, and in such a way, there is a lot of sadness, grief and afterwards there was a huge amount of anger as well.
"Everyone has horrible experiences in life and some people have to say goodbye to people they love but for someone's life to be cut short like that is not the natural order of things. I have three children of my own now and I know how my folks feel about what happened."
In pure rugby terms, Dallaglio has enjoyed the good times (World Cup) and the bad times (Six Nations Chumps) in a short few months.
"We set out with our objectives to win the World Cup and people may have underestimated how much it took out of us to do that.
"We threw our hearts and souls into peaking for that competition so it was probably inevitable that we could not sustain the effort through to the Championship. I felt we were fortunate because we almost peaked for the World Cup too early. We probably played our best rugby in a number of matches leading up to the competition.
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