With a name like Austin Healey it was never likely this particular cheeky scamp, a product of St Anslem's College and Birkenhead RUFC, was going to melt into the background.

Those of you with long memories may recall, when the Beeb still aired Rugby Special on Sunday afternoons, a precocious scrum half from Merseyside emerging on the national stage.

He was asked to switch from the wing to fill the boots of none other than former England number seven Dewi Morris at the Lancashire club having moved there from local rivals Waterloo during a period when Orrell were starting to embrace with the new world of professionalism.

Not a week went by, it seemed, without clips of Orrell games featuring a last ditch, corner flag tackle by Healey to save a certain try and it was not long before that commitment in defence and a certain flair in attack was picked up on at Leicester.

His move there signalled the demise of the Edge Hall Road club as a major player in the club game but he barely looked back going on to win international caps and honours galore at the Tigers culminating last year in the club's glorious treble in which he played no small part.

In Australia he is nicknamed "the dwarf" in the UK the "Leicester Lip", both seem to sum up two of his major characteristics - he is not the biggest rugby player in the world but is never short of a word or two.

Whether he sought the cameras or the cameras sought him he featured heavily on Lions TV on NTL throughout the Lions tour, at one point doing a very funny impression of Geordie fitness coach Steve Black, despite not featuring in the Tests.

But it was his outspoken columns written in the Guardian that landed him in hot water and in front of a Lions disciplinary committee, the question is will he be able to talk his way out of this one?

Austin Healey - the recent highs and lows of the "Leicester Lip":

1973: Born Wallasey, Merseyside.

Height: 5ft 10ins

Weight: 14st 4lbs

Clubs: Birkenhead Park, Waterloo, Orrell and Leicester, who he joined in 1996

Positions: Wing, scrum-half and fly-half

England caps: 32

England debut: versus Ireland, February 1997

Lions debut: versus South Africa, 1997 (replacement)

1999: February 15 - London Irish cite Healey for stamping on Kevin Putt in Premiership match. Banned by Leicester for 21 days and forced out of England's Five Nations opener against Scotland. Handed eight-week ban by RFU which rules him out of remainder of 1999 Five Nations programme.

1999: Recalled by England coach Clive Woodward for World Cup campaign and voted both Leicester and Premiership player of season.

April - Wins Premiership title with Leicester.

2000: April - Wins second successive Premiership title with Leicester.

November - Starts on the wing for England in their win over Australia at Twickenham but is subsequently dropped to the replacements' bench.

2001: April - Wins unprecedented hat-trick of English championships with Leicester.

May - Wins man of match in European Cup final in Paris against Stade Francais after setting up injury-time try for Leon Lloyd with decisive break. Tigers win 34-30.

- Threatens to quit Leicester unless he is installed as first-choice fly-half but later retracts the statement, claiming he was drunk when it was made.

July 14 - Uses a newspaper column to criticise Australian players before
the Lions' deciding Test defeat Down Under.

July 18 - Asked to appear before Lions disciplinary committee to explain the offending article.