Dallaglio impossible to replace

Rugby/ Lions Tour: For the ex-English captain of Italian-Irish extraction, for the Lions and especially Clive Woodward, losing Lawrence Dallaglio after the first quarter of Saturday's first match, against Bay of Plenty, was cruel beyond belief.

Of all the players Woodward would not have wanted to lose, Dallaglio was right up there with the talisman and captain, Brian O'Driscoll.

Dallaglio's tour was similarly curtailed four years ago, the difference being that this time he was in prime nick. Rested from Test rugby this season, Dallaglio had long since reinvented himself as a tighter number eight and had come off the back of a vintage end-of-season run of form with Wasps. According to one inside track, he was the fittest forward in the party.

"I've probably never seen him in better shape physically or mentally," admitted Woodward. Heavily involved in the first and third tries, he looked set to be a major player on this tour. But if replacing him in the team with Martin Corry, Simon Taylor, Michael Owen or whoever is one thing, and Simon Easterby in the squad is another, how on earth do you even begin replacing him as a leader - on the pitch, in the dressing-room or on the training ground?

"Let's be honest, you can't replace a character like Lawrence Dallaglio," admitted Martin Corry yesterday.

Some men are born to lead, and Dallaglio is one of that rare breed. "To my mind he's one of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen," said his Wasps team-mate Josh Lewsey.

Dallaglio's dressing-room talks are the stuff of legend. Prior to the famous Wasps-Munster European Cup semi-final in Lansdowne Road, he spoke of what Ireland and the IRFU had done to Warren Gatland, and how this was payback time for their coach. Emotive stuff, as it usually is with "Lol". Players would go through walls for this fellow, though they'd struggle to get to the wall before him.

Ever since they retired from England duty within the space of 24 hours at the start of the season, Woodward and Dallaglio would have been plotting, scheming and talking of little else.

Woodward admitted as much yesterday when revealing he had gone to the hospital in Rotorua to spend half an hour with his stricken number eight on Saturday night.

"He was devastated but philosophical too," said Woodward.

Dallaglio's fractured ankle was operated on by two of Auckland's leading orthopaedic surgeons yesterday, and he'll need four to six months to recover.

The show - back in the Hilton hotel on the harbour of rainy Auckland - must go on. Simon Easterby will replace Dallaglio.

The team to play Taranaki - a similarly full-on physical challenge - is completely changed as they seek to give everyone a start in the first three games, and as the size of Woodward's playing panel looks more vindicated with each passing day.

A whole new phalanx of Lions will proudly pull on the famous red jersey for the first time on tour again, including an all-Irish outside three of Shane Horgan, Geordan Murphy and Denis Hickie, while John Hayes and Donncha O'Callaghan will also start.

They are making all the right noises, none more so than Gareth Jenkins, the inspiring Welsh motivator who handed out the jerseys on Saturday and is part of the "Wednesday" coaching ticket with Ian McGeechan and Mike Ford.

"I don't always think the players are always aware really as to how big an honour and responsibility it actually is," said Jenkins, who recalled his own sense of envy in an otherwise fantastic career at not playing for the Lions, and how villages in the valleys came to a standstill in greeting some of the heroes of the 1971 winning Lions here.

"Playing for your country is probably your ultimate ambition and your goal, but becoming a Lion actually attaches you to a tradition that's of a greater emotion than most people ever get a chance to have a touch or feel of. But it comes with a huge amount of responsibility as well, because the eyes of the world are on this trip, and there are legends being made out of Lions. It's a fantastic opportunity these young men have got."

Cheesy? Nah. That's the stuff.