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'Very brave': Lawrence Dallaglio names his Premiership Immortals XV
Legendary Wasps No8 Lawrence Dallaglio has named his Premiership Immortals XV, including icons such as Martin Johnson and Neil Back but also selecting the lesser-known likes of Will Green and Fraser Waters. After getting fans to select their Immortals XV with online polls, a series of BT Sport pundits are now naming their own XVs ahead of a round-table debate show on May 27 featuring Dallaglio, Ugo Monye, Ben Kay and Austin Healey.
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Dallaglio has had first dibs at naming a team and he hopes that the players he has chosen will ignite a huge debate amongst Premiership rugby fans. “Everyone has different criteria for who they pick. They are players in my Premiership Immortals XV who maybe wouldn’t necessarily be in my England all-time greatest 15. Some played more in the Premiership than they did for England,” he said.
“Of course, in our day you had to play Premiership rugby every single game and every single international, whereas nowadays players maybe miss half the Premiership games that season. What does immortal mean? It means that your fame lasts forever.
“Hopefully the whole thing around this debate is people will be going, you can’t leave him out, or you can’t put him in, whatever, but that is the whole idea. I have gone with players that I know, I have seen how they train, seen how they react to winning, seen how they react to losing. The greatest serial winners are people that detest losing and every single person in that team is a serial winner.
“The criteria for lasting the test of time is you have to win. It’s great to play in the Premiership for 10, 12 years, but if you end up with nothing, then what were you doing? These players were people who set the standards in their clubs, very high standards, and I think that is why great players that we see playing today probably followed in the footsteps of some of these.”
"When you're talking about Premiership Immortals, there's no one that embodies that more than @rwiggy9."
With seven Premiership titles to his name, @dallaglio8 insists there is only one man for the scrum-half position in his Immortals XV.#PremImmortals | @premrugby pic.twitter.com/mOIQaHAMPy
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) May 23, 2023
Here is how Dallaglio explained his picks in five of the 15 positions, starting with his selection of Schalk Brits at hooker. “There are certain players you think of that no other player can do and they do it with a smile on their face, so I have gone with Schalk Brits, an absolutely incredible player,” he began. “He scored 30 tries in his career and do you know what, normally you are enemies for 80 minutes and the rest of the time you are kind of friends.
“But this guy, you can’t be his enemy, he is just such a nice guy, he just smiles all the time. Steve Thompson redefined the hooker position, but Schalk Brits took it to a different level. He should be in the backs, really. He was just an amazing player and actually the Premiership misses him. I miss him.”
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Switching to tighthead, Dallaglio plumped for an old Wasps favourite. “Will Green played his whole career at Wasps and then went over to Leinster and they don’t take many over in Leinster that are English, so he was obviously quite good. Just a brilliant player, very reliable, very dependable, often going up against players that were technically slightly bigger or slightly better than him but always came out on top in the big game. He was a funny guy too. Really funny guy.”
Another long-serving Wasps servant also got the nod at blindside. “If we were picking an England XV, Richard Hill would absolutely be my No6, but in terms of what this guy achieved in the Premiership, he deserves to be in the Immortals team,” insisted Dallaglio.
“Whenever the opposition had a really big ball carrier, like a Billy Vunipola or a Jamie Roberts or just someone like a modern-day Jasper Wiese, it was, ‘Joe, see that guy? He’s yours. Every time he gets the ball, you tackle him’… He was outstanding, he won four titles, was very brave, took a lot of punishment but just came back. He made his debut in 1999 for England and he was playing 10, 12 years later. Unbelievable player. He made 36 tackles in a European Cup final in 2004.”
Moving to outside centre, Waters was the Dallaglio choice. “I have gone with someone I know. He was an incredible rugby player. Maybe didn’t get enough international caps. He was the first defensive captain of the much-vaunted Shaun Edwards blitz defence which took Wasps to three consecutive Premiership title, and it is the hardest position on the field to play.
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“Certainly, the hardest position to defend and to stay fit. He was man of the match in countless finals, and he is the poshest man in my team, educated at Harrow school.”
Another Dallaglio selection sure to raise eyebrows was that of Geordan Murphy at full-back. “People will say what about Jason Robinson? There are so many candidates for that particular position, but he is just one of the most talented players I have ever met. Box of tricks, incredible talent, instinctively played well and just great fun to be around.
“If you think about the Irish team now with the likes of Jordan Larmour, (Hugo) Keenan, they’d have Geordan Murphy in that side all day long. Imagine if that pack of Tigers had actually given him the ball a bit more what they would have been capable of achieving. He was a wonderful player and maybe because he played in England, Ireland were just making a statement. Who knows?”
Lawrence Dallaglio’s Immortals XV: 15. Geordan Murphy; 14. Mark Cueto, 13. Fraser Waters, 12. Brad Barritt, 11. Chris Ashton; 10. Charlie Hodgson, 9. Richard Wigglesworth; 1. Marcos Ayerza, 2. Schalk Brits, 3. Will Green, 4. Martin Johnson (capt), 5. Simon Shaw, 6. Joe Worsley, 7. Neil Back, 8. Lawrence Dallaglio.
- Watch BT Sport’s Premiership Immortals on BT Sport 1 from 1pm on Saturday, May 27, to see who makes the greatest Premiership XV of all time. The final episode will be followed by BT Sport’s exclusive live coverage of the Gallagher Premiership final from 2pm on BT Sport 1 btsport.com/immortals
Comments on RugbyPass
It will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
1 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
2 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
28 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
3 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
2 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to commentsAnd the person responsible for creating a culture of accountability is?
3 Go to commentsMore useless words from Ben Smith -Please get another team to write about. SA really dont need your input, it suck anyway.
264 Go to comments