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Lawrence Dallaglio picks the rugby moment of his life, and it's not England's 2003 World Cup win
Lawrence Dallaglio has claimed that 1997 success with the Lions in South Africa was the best moment of his stellar career rather than winning the 2003 World Cup with England in Australia. The now 47-year-old enjoyed a lengthy Test innings that featured 85 caps with England.
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However, Dallaglio believes that his three-Test, eight-week adventure in the home of the Springboks 23 years ago was the pinnacle of his time as a player, the Lions winning the series 2-1.
Reviewing the iconic opening Test win from the 1997 series in South Africa, he told RugbyPass: “Looking back on your career, people ask what was the best moment. Naturally, people expect you to say the Rugby World Cup which was amazing obviously because you don’t get to play in many and the opportunity to win one is fantastic.
“But actually in terms of an experience, the best rugby experience of my life bar none was the 1997 Lions tour to South Africa. It was an odyssey really.
“I was lucky, I didn’t grow up in a traditional rugby background but I had a lot of friends who told me about the Lions and I’d read up about them because it is important to understand what you’re going into.
“A friend of mine in Fulham who runs a second-hand book shop rang me up and said, ‘I have got all these books on these great Lions tours, they are there for you to pick up and read’.
“I read about Carwyn James, Willie John McBride and the tour to South Africa in ’74, read about some of the times when things didn’t go quite so well. I felt like I knew a lot about the environment I was coming into but even that couldn’t quite prepare me for how special it really is.”
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Dallaglio went on to tour Australia and New Zealand with the Lions in 2001 and 2005, that later trip cut short by injury in the opening match in Rotorua. However, he describes winning in the Springboks’ back yard as something to treasure because of the notorious reputation the South Africans had for physicality.
“I first went to South Africa in ’94 and it hit me very clearly then that the game had been professional for a lot longer in South Africa than it possibly had been in England. Just the physical size of the players there, even in the backs,” he explained.
“Nowadays there is more of an even spread in terms of people have caught up but in those days you went over there and you just looked at South Africans and thought, ‘Oh my word, they are just big, big guys, big men’.
“Not just big as in tall but just big, huge, huge people, physically intimidating, physically scary. We all learned very quickly from an early age that if you want to have any chance of beating any South African team, but particularly the Springboks, you have to at least match them physically.
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“I don’t mean to be unkind but I sort of liken it to the school bully. If you’re in the playground and the school bully comes along, you have a choice – you either take a beating or you stand up to him and South Africa are very much like that.
“They will run at you and they will run really hard and if that doesn’t work they will run at you again and they will run really hard and if that doesn’t work, they are going to run over the top of you.
'It did turn sour'
Ed Griffiths' behind the scenes insight into the Springboks 1995 #RWC win ??, the back story to the Mandela moment, confronting flag-waving fans, holding clothes hangers for luck & the lost opportunity of it all
– writes @heagneyl https://t.co/XpSHESE4cF
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) May 24, 2020
“There wasn’t necessarily that much flexibility with the way that they played because they didn’t have to be, they just bullied their way forward. There has always been a bit of that mentality in the South Africans.
“Whether it is the Dutch mentality, I’m not quite sure where it comes from but it is definitely there and more often than not they do bully their way to victory. What we were determined to do as a group of Lions was to say that we are going to stand up to that physical onslaught.”
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
26 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
26 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
26 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
26 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
26 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments