Free spirit who ghosts past opposition

How Iain Balshaw fares this summer will be one of the most intriguing aspects of the Lions tour. England's wunderkind was the selectorial ace in the hole of the Six Nations championship, rewarding Clive Woodward's bold call by elevating England's attacking game to another level. The Lions' rendezvous with the Queensland Reds tomorrow will begin to tell the tale but at the end of this summer of rugby you sense that Balshaw will be one of the game's major players.

Some of the Australian media are drawing a comparison with David Campese, and when it was delicately put to Balshaw that sometimes Campese's mind didn't know where his feet were going the young pretender smiled and chided the inquisitor: "You mean he was running up his own arse?

If people want to tar him with the same brush, that's fine by him. Blessed with pace to burn and an ability to accelerate off either foot without breaking stride, Balshaw glimpses into the sun at a garden table in the squad hotel and reveals to his assorted gathering: "Whatever my first thought is I do it straight away. If it's your gut feeling, that's what I try and do. When I hesitate and I'm indecisive then that's when things go wrong."

And that's really what makes him so unpredictable and downright dangerous. It's the Balshaw Ballet. Others run, he glides. Long may his free spirit survive. His two tries against Western Australia as a replacement last Friday, like the one against Italy from his own half, were run in almost effortlessly, and it's hard to think of a European full back with greater attacking menace.

He's lucky that his instinctive approach hasn't been coached out of him, and you sense the mind-set of Brian Ashton has been at work here. "Most of the coaches that I've been under have said `do whatever you want to do on the field as long as it's not stupid. If you think it's right then do it'. My Bath coaches do that, Andy Robinson and Clive Woodward do that, and Graham (Henry) has a set plan but he's also given me permission to have a go if I think it's on."

The instinctive chip to pierce the Wallaby defence last autumn in Twickenham was a classic case in point. "They were down on numbers so they had no one really at the back. That's all there was to it really. You have to go for summat, and luckily it bounced up for Dan Luger. A bit disappointed it didn't bounce up for me." Yet it was clearly another example of Balshaw's instincts at work. "It's just one of those moments when your gut feeling takes over. 'Cos they had two men off it was possibly the best time to chip. I think Chris Latham and Matt Cockbain had been sinbinned, we'd stretched them both ways, set it up and the ball came to me with four yellow jerseys in front, so I thought it was best to chip and chase."

The jury is still out on his defensive capabilities at international level. Against Wales, orthodox balls in the air and along the deck prompted some basic errors. True, he pulled off a couple of stunning try-saving covering tackles against France, but covering tackles are one thing, try-savers when one-on-one quite another. And given England's dominance in the Six Nations, it's a test that has rarely come his way.

For someone who makes it all look easy, he admits: "It's all pretty difficult. I just try and block it out of my mind, anything I think is going to be hard I just try and take it in my stride. Defending is probably the hardest for everyone to do. It is very frantic and there's a lot of pressure on you. You've got to be switched on."

He began playing the game at the age of 10 in St Mary's Hall prep school, and ironically, he was in Australia four years ago as part of the English schools, which denied him the chance to see any of the Lions tour.

"I just remember arriving back at Bath and they were all talking about Jerry's drop-goal." He pauses and laughs a little, "and Jerry (Guscott) was talking about it as well."

Sure, he's still very young and he's been privileged, but he is very good-humoured and, true to his own description, "easy going". He has a preference for full back at a push but doesn't seem too perturbed about it.

Before the Six Nations he admits his sole target was to get on the England squad. Now, ironically, he finds himself vying for the full back berth with his Bath and England rival Matt Perry. "I think we both see it as `the best man will win,' " he says, shrugging his shoulders. "He gets on with what he does and I get on with what I do on the field. And off the field we're just good mates and that's it."

He's had his heroes. "There were a few like Serge Blanco, Campese was pretty good." Wing or full back, it didn't matter. "I don't look at positions, I look at players. There were a lot of players, Jerry Guscott, Christian Cullen and Andrew Walker, is it? A good runner. Just people who are flamboyant and want to do things with the ball and are exciting."

None of that comes as a surprise. You suspect he'll be mentioned in that company more and more. He really is that good.