Lawrence Dallaglio's glittering rugby career will come to an end this month when he finally hangs up his boots after 15 years in the spotlight.

Our friends at ESPN Classic caught up with the England and Wasps stalwart recently to reflect on his many achievements as his final season comes to a close.

Very few players have achieved worldwide fame, and those who have fall into a very small category. And Lawrence Bruno Nero Dallaglio is one of those superstars.

Born in Shepherd's Bush, London, Dallaglio has won virtually every accolade available in the game, from Premiership to World Cup and has also captained England and represented the British & Irish Lions.

Perhaps one of the most impressive facts from a success-laden career is that he has only played in one set of club colours - that of London Wasps where he first laced up his boots as a teenager.

"When I moved to London in 1989, having left school, I happened to open a newspaper and look at the league tables and Wasps were top of the table", recalled Dallaglio, "And that was the reason I joined Wasps, I thought I would start at the top and see if I could work my way either up or down!"

Dallaglio would go on to catch the eye of the wider rugby fraternity as part of England's victorious Rugby World Cup Sevens side that claimed the inaugural title at Murrayfield in 1993.

"Sevens was very much part of my life growing up. I played a lot for my school, Ampleforth, you know we were involved in a lot of winning tournaments with them and I suppose it was a natural starting point for me.

"It is quite a risky thing to just throw yourself into Sevens because you know you're exposed on the pitch but I guess no one had really heard of most of the teams including people like myself and yet we took on some of the best teams in the world, Fiji, Australia - you know we beat an Australian team that contained guys like Campese and Lynagh and Burke, so for me it was a chance to taste the success and that feeling of winning in an England shirt at a very young age and it certainly gave me a taste of what I wanted to experience more and more of."

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The last few seasons have seen the Wasps' talisman lift seven trophies - leading by example, as Wasps enjoyed the most successful period in their history.

These trophies were: three consecutive Premiership titles, the Heineken Cup in 2004 and again in 2007, the Parker Pen European Shield and the Anglo Welsh Powergen Cup.

And the side remains in the hunt for another Premiership title this season with the 35-year-old Dallaglio spearheading their charge.

"For many years we were kind of the bridesmaids without actually being the bride," reflected the back row star, "we finished second or third in the league, we'd finish runners up in the cup and it has only really been in the last six years that we've really started to have that consistent success."

But it is a specific period of sustained success, for club and country, that figures most strongly in Dallaglio's own mental scrap book.

"The 2003 summer tour to New Zealand and Australia, to get back to back victories against those two [was special]," commented Dallaglio, who has been capped in all three back row positions.

"We then picked up a trophy called the World Cup in November in 2003 and then the same season we won the European Cup with Wasps against Toulouse and the Premiership again against Bath - so it was just an amazing sort of twelve months.

"I have to say it took its toll on not only myself but on everyone else but you know you couldn't ask to, there was nothing more to win in that year, everything, it was almost too much.

"You work your whole career and then suddenly everything happens all in the same year and it was just an incredible feeling but the highlight would probably be the the European trophy success against Toulouse who were probably the biggest name in European rugby and to have beaten them at Twickenham and an epic semi final against Munster as well was just fantastic."

Despite all his success on the domestic stage, it will be his role in England's memorable triumph in 2003 that the majority of fans will remember him for.

"I don't think playing every minute of every game was the intention either from myself or the coaching team," reflected Dallaglio, who captained his country during two spells between 1997-99 and 2004.

"I had a bit of a tantrum about it at the time you know, because everyone else was getting a rest and going off to Surfer's Paradise and I was sort of training and playing every game.

"Ultimately at the end of the tournament, it was a statistic I was quite proud of really so you can't have it both ways I suppose.

"But winning the World Cup was again an amazing journey but it was very much something that, without sounding too sort of gung ho about it, we kind of, we expected to win the World Cup. We arrived at the competition, you know, with a bit of good luck I suppose - injury free, the best team in the world, we had been for the last three years. So I think we just arrived at that tournament with the best prepared team and there was absolutely no way we were going to lose.

"However we made a pretty good job of it in the final against Australia, you know, having dominated them for the last six or seven test matches and we made it hard work but you know, I guess we got our dream final - to play the hosts in their own country, you know, in front of so many people, it was a great day for English fans."

International retirement followed for Dallaglio in 2004 but he would later reverse that decision and as a result was part of England's unpredictable run to the Rugby World Cup Final in France last year.

On that occasion England came up just short with South Africa clinching the sport's biggest prize.

"Whether you're 21 or 31, you hate losing. Life is about taking opportunities and forget the fact that you've won a World Cup final, you can't think about that you know, you've got an opportunity to win another one and therefore, you know, you don't get those opportunities very often in your life so it's nice to take them when you get them. It was disappointing but considering where we had been in the tournament I suppose it was, you know, we had a better tournament than most people - just not quite as good as South Africa's."

It is another clash with South Africa that Dallaglio rates as the ultimate highlight in a career full of show-reel moments.

The British & Irish Lions' series victory over the then World Champions South Africa in 1997 was the first of what would be three tours with the representative side for Dallaglio.

"It was just an amazing feeling I mean I really, really enjoyed it in 1997. It's difficult to say that really because I mean to differentiate that from the World Cup but the Lions is definitely the pinnacle of anyone's career, the best of the best, that's what it is, so I mean to be in that situation is fantastic."

Knee and ankle injuries marred the 2001 and 2005 tours respectively but both may have struggled to eclipse that magical '97 tour that was immortalised in the legendary documentary Living with the Lions.

"It was kind of the last amateur, first professional tour. It was a mixture of both really. I mean it was incredibly well coached, incredibly well managed, by some very big, big characters and big names in the game.

"The players were unbelievable, the mix of players that made that trip, the characters, the personalities. And I think we just approached it with the right ethos. You know I mean the Lions is special, you spend four years kicking lumps out of each other and then they put you in a hotel and call you a team.

"You get a week to prepare and then you go off to play the best team in the world. So it is quite unique and it's an interesting formula, different cultural backgrounds, different social backgrounds, different preconceptions of players.

"You're rooming together, suddenly you get to know a guy that you thought was a bit of a prat and you get to know each other and you actually get on very, very well. So we came together very quickly and things went for us, you know, we worked incredibly hard, we had a great, great time, probably in terms of my rugby experiences, in terms of my life experiences, probably the best experiences I've ever had on a rugby trip and I include the World Cup in that, it was amazing.

"You think about the history of the players who have worn the Lions shirt, you know it's a very small number of people who have put that shirt on and you look at your own position and you put the list of names down of the people who have worn that shirt and it just makes it very, very special."

As Dallaglio's career comes to a close few would back against him writing one last glorious chapter with Wasps pushing for a place in this season's Premiership play-offs.

And fans and journalists alike can rest assured that the passionate Dallaglio will be leading from the front, by example, as he has done throughout his career.

"Rugby is a game that's played with emotion, I mean, it's a rough tough game. Of course it's skilful as well but I just I like to use emotion to motivate myself and motivate others.

"I think it's a very powerful tool and understanding, gauging peoples feelings, your own feelings and being able to react to that and using people's comments and whatever, whatever edge you can to get yourself in the right frame of mind to play the game probably compensates for a lack of skill I think."

Honours:

Wasps
Premiership 1996-97, 2002-03, 2003-04, 2004-05
Powergen Cup 1998-99, 1999-00, 2005-06
Heineken Cup 2003-04, 2006-07
Parker Pen Challenge Cup 2002-03

England (85 caps)
Rugby World Cup Sevens 1993
Six Nations 1996 (Triple Crown), 2000, 2001, 2003 (Grand Slam)
Rugby World Cup 2003, Runner-up 2007

British & Irish Lions (3 caps)
South Africa 1997
Australia 2001
New Zealand 2005

Click here to see Lawrence Dallaglio's international career breakdown in ScrumStats

The Legends Speak - Dallaglio on Dallaglio
The ex-England captain Lawrence Dallaglio, ESPN Classic talks to the big man in an exclusive interview.

Check out the full interview on ESPN Classic, Sat May 10, 2008, 17:00 BST
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