Brendan Gallagher remembers the 2003 World Cup triumph with Lawrence Dallaglio

Lawrence Dallaglio wipes his plate clean – the monster ‘Magnifica' breakfast at Carluccios in Richmond having been routed with lip-smacking relish – orders fresh coffee and places both hands behind his neck as he closes his eyes to recapture the essence of those golden moments. For five seconds, possibly more, he is all intense concentration and then he snaps out of his reverie with a huge smile and that raucous Dallaglio chuckle. Was it really ten years ago?
Indeed it was. Dallaglio famously played every single minute of England's 2003 campaign and, as you would expect, re-living the highs and lows of that triumph is no chore although you might be surprised how infrequently he indulges in trips down Memory Lane. The subsequent decade has allowed little time for contemplation, what with two Heineken Cup successes at Wasps, a second World Cup final with England, various charity bike rides, marriage to long-term partner Alice, a young family to bring up and now a new front-line media career with BT Sport. For Dallaglio the 2003 World Cup was both a towering summit and a staging post. It was by no means the end of the journey.
“Playing every minute? Well I wasn't overly impressed with Clive at the time to be honest but on reflection I am very proud and cherish that achievement more with every passing year,” says Dallaglio as the memories start flowing. “I was definitely looking for a breather in the final pool game against Uruguay but it didn't work out like that and looking back I'm glad.
“During the summer training camp at Pennyhill Park, like everybody else, I was flying but then I picked up a hamstring tear and missed all three warm-up matches – the home and away double header against France and Wales at the Millennium. That was far from ideal, you need a match or two under you belt before a club season let alone the World Cup, so getting some rugby in my legs was the priority so I played in our first three games against Georgia, South Africa and Samoa. I underperformed a bit in those games, as did the team generally in fairness, and come the Uruguay match Clive decided I still needed game time. Looking back he was right and I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Clive made a lot of good calls in the World Cup and that was one of them even if I was deprived of some R & R on the Gold Coast that week.”
The focus of England's pool was inevitably their heavyweight contest against South Africa at the Subiaco Oval in Perth, their first meeting since England has destroyed them 53-3 at Twickenham in November 2002 when an over-psyched Springbok side went head-hunting and had Jannes Labischagne sent off after 22 minutes. Barring any massive surprises the loser of the match in Perth would face a quarter-final against the All Blacks and although England, as the world's No.1 team, feared nobody that would definitely present a tougher and more fraught route to the final. The stakes were high.
“We got the job done against Georgia pretty competently without pulling up any trees and then came the Boks game, or the Kyran Bracken Show as I remember it. There had been a few “it will be different in Perth” comments from the Boks when we trooped off at Twickenham which made me laugh but this was a big tense match. The Boks are always good enough to win any one-off game and they had a strong team out that night, Looking back they were England in disguise. Just as our ‘failure' at the 1999 World Cup was part of our 2003 success story, the Boks in 2003 were on the upward curve which led to 2007 and their World Cup win over us at the Stade de France.
“Kyran was a bloody good scrum-half, a bit unlucky with injury and, of course, a contemporary of Matt Dawson so they fought out the starting spot for years, much to England's benefit. That night in Perth was Kyran's finest moment.
“We were scruffy, they missed a few kicks and it was all getting tense but Kyran was having a stormer and won his personal dual with Joost van der Westhuizen who was always a key man for the Boks. On one occasion he bailed out Will Greenwood who had touched down in goal thinking it would be 22 but got pinged for carrying the ball over. Instead it was a Boks scrum five in front of our posts. The alarm bells were ringing but Kyran was all over Joost at the back of the scrum and we turned him over. Kyran didn't get to play in the final but like all the squad played a massive part in taking the trophy home. “
Next up was another less than stellar England performance, this time against Samoa in Melbourne, when England only got their act together in the final quarter against the Pacific Islanders. England got on the wrong side of referee Jonathan Kaplan and got drawn into the loose kind of game the Samoans love before England finally restored order by adopting a tighter driving game.
“We had a big debrief the morning after the Samoa game. Clive wasn't amused. He went through all the penalties one by one on the big screen and after the eighth or ninth we had established beyond reasonable doubt, m'lud, that Johnno had been responsible for six of them. We've all been there. ‘At what point do you think you lost the ref, Martin?' asked Clive and  we all collapsed with laughter. It was a good tension reliever.
“The Samoa match was actually a classic case of England opponents raising their game, say 20 per cent, because we were England and the world-ranked No.1 team and us, for whatever reason, being 5-10 per cent below par. When that happens it's suddenly game-on but the encouraging thing was that we thought our way out of a tight sport on the hoof and that put us in good stead for further down the line.”
Actually not that far down the line. A week later England were still in Brisbane and had to dig deep to repel an inspired Wales who, fresh from a rousing performance against New Zealand in their final pool game, threw the kitchen sink at England. The Welsh outscored England three tries to one before England prevailed, the introduction of Mike Catt after the break providing a much-needed tactical kicking option for a beleaguered Jonny Wilkinson.
“In all honesty at no time in the Wales match was I as worried as when we played Samoa. Credit to Wales who had nothing to lose and played well but we performed like complete idiots in the first half, we were appalling.
“If we'd played brilliantly for the first 40 minutes and been behind at half-time, I would have been very concerned but it is an 80-minute game I knew we would come good. Jonny wasn't at his best – we've all been there, it happens – and despite Cattie modestly insisting his arrival had nothing to do with our revival he is wrong. Mike played a vital role.
“Jonny was much younger in those days remember but like all world-class players bounced straight back with a magnificent performance against France the next week. Knowing him a bit as I do that was Jonny the perfectionist making amends in his own way for what he considered a below-par performance against Wales.”
Following the Wales match Dallaglio, one of the senior pros, played an important role in getting England to scale down the intensity and timing of their daily training sessions ahead of the semi-final against France in Sydney. Mindful that England still had not really hit their straps he, Jason Leonard, Paul Grayson and Mike Catt, to name but four, disappeared into the Brisbane night in search of ale and conducted their own debrief. “We had a great ‘old codgers' rugby chat while we re-hydrated in the corner of some bar and the consensus was that we were overdoing the training and that there was no reason whatsoever to stage sessions in the heat of the afternoon when our matches were all in the evening.
“Brave as Lions, as you are after a few beers, we decided to bring this important matter to Clive's attention at our team meeting the following day but when Clive wrapped things up by inviting ‘any other comments' I was the only one who seemed to put his hand up! Anyway the point seemed to go down okay and we did ease back a bit. I have every sympathy for our coaches who were totally dedicated to the team, their job was to make sure no stone had been unturned before a game, but equally only the players, being really honest with themselves, can know what the exact balance between training and resting should be.
“We were in a good place now, happy and relaxed in our hotel in Manly and certain we would do a number on the French. Without being big-headed this is where we were meant to be. As well as Jonny being immense, the semi-final was all about our front row of Vicks, Steve Thompson and Trevor Woodman having the collective game of their lives and smashing their opposite numbers into the next parish. Contrary to popular belief France's defeat had nothing to do with the rain and Freddie Michalak not liking the conditions. We would still have beaten France by the same score or more if we had played them in 90-degrees of sunshine on Manly beach.”
And so to the final and Australia, a team England had beaten six times on the trot. As the hype mounted the old wartime adage of “Keep calm and carry on” seemed to be England's mantra for much of the week as they set up camp in the coffee shops around Manly and willingly pulled over for impromptu autograph sessions with the huge number of England fans now in Sydney. England were determined not to waste too much nervous energy as their greatest test awaited.
“We had to stay chilled and let the gravitas of the match itself kick in on the day and that's pretty much what happened. They got a great start courtesy of a wonderful crossfield kick from Steve Larkham who was as good a Test ten as I ever played against. But, no panic, and soon we ripped into them and played some very decent rugby and should have lead by more than 14-5 at half-time.
“After the break though we played as poor a 40 minutes as I can ever remember from that group, losing the second half 9-0. We lost concentration and Andre Watson started to find fault with our dominant scrum. It could easily have gone pear-shaped but we still had that calm inner core of belief and crucially we never actually slipped behind the Aussies at any stage. It might have appeared otherwise in the stands and back home on the TV but we still felt we were dictating terms.
“Then came the extra-time drama and the epic conclusion but my over-riding memory of the night was the sheer pleasure of sitting in the changing room for an hour or so afterwards when we shut the door to all but VIPs and Royals and just enjoyed the moment en masse, a group of guys who possibly may never all be in the same room together again at any stage for the rest of our lives.
“Some were crying with the emotion, some were laughing. I was in the laughing camp having shed all my tears singing the anthem before the French semi. By the time we'd done anti-doping and Press and travelled back from the stadium it was probably 2am before we hit the town. At one stage an Aussie copper very decently gave myself, Martin and Jase a lift back to Manly in his patrol car for brunch and I think I might have grabbed an hour's kip about 4pm.
“We gave it a good belt but I still felt very energised and motivated as soon as we got home. We had five Wasps in the squad and were all in the shape of out lives and we buckled down more or less straight away.Why waste all that fitness? The result was a great season and an epic Heineken Cup title. There was no sense of anti-climax whatsoever and no World Cup hangover, nor has there ever been. It's all about what happens next.
“Shall we have one more coffee?”