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'Very brave': Lawrence Dallaglio names his Premiership Immortals XV
By Liam Heagney
Legendary Wasps No8 Lawrence Dallaglio has named his Premiership Immortals XV, including icons such as Martin Johnson and Neil Back but also selecting the lesser-known likes of Will Green and Fraser Waters. After getting fans to select their Immortals XV with online polls, a series of BT Sport pundits are now naming their own XVs ahead of a round-table debate show on May 27 featuring Dallaglio, Ugo Monye, Ben Kay and Austin Healey.
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Dallaglio has had first dibs at naming a team and he hopes that the players he has chosen will ignite a huge debate amongst Premiership rugby fans. “Everyone has different criteria for who they pick. They are players in my Premiership Immortals XV who maybe wouldn’t necessarily be in my England all-time greatest 15. Some played more in the Premiership than they did for England,” he said.
“Of course, in our day you had to play Premiership rugby every single game and every single international, whereas nowadays players maybe miss half the Premiership games that season. What does immortal mean? It means that your fame lasts forever.
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“Hopefully the whole thing around this debate is people will be going, you can’t leave him out, or you can’t put him in, whatever, but that is the whole idea. I have gone with players that I know, I have seen how they train, seen how they react to winning, seen how they react to losing. The greatest serial winners are people that detest losing and every single person in that team is a serial winner.
“The criteria for lasting the test of time is you have to win. It’s great to play in the Premiership for 10, 12 years, but if you end up with nothing, then what were you doing? These players were people who set the standards in their clubs, very high standards, and I think that is why great players that we see playing today probably followed in the footsteps of some of these.”
"When you're talking about Premiership Immortals, there's no one that embodies that more than @rwiggy9."
With seven Premiership titles to his name, @dallaglio8 insists there is only one man for the scrum-half position in his Immortals XV.#PremImmortals | @premrugby pic.twitter.com/mOIQaHAMPy
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) May 23, 2023
Here is how Dallaglio explained his picks in five of the 15 positions, starting with his selection of Schalk Brits at hooker. “There are certain players you think of that no other player can do and they do it with a smile on their face, so I have gone with Schalk Brits, an absolutely incredible player,” he began. “He scored 30 tries in his career and do you know what, normally you are enemies for 80 minutes and the rest of the time you are kind of friends.
“But this guy, you can’t be his enemy, he is just such a nice guy, he just smiles all the time. Steve Thompson redefined the hooker position, but Schalk Brits took it to a different level. He should be in the backs, really. He was just an amazing player and actually the Premiership misses him. I miss him.”
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Switching to tighthead, Dallaglio plumped for an old Wasps favourite. “Will Green played his whole career at Wasps and then went over to Leinster and they don’t take many over in Leinster that are English, so he was obviously quite good. Just a brilliant player, very reliable, very dependable, often going up against players that were technically slightly bigger or slightly better than him but always came out on top in the big game. He was a funny guy too. Really funny guy.”
Another long-serving Wasps servant also got the nod at blindside. “If we were picking an England XV, Richard Hill would absolutely be my No6, but in terms of what this guy achieved in the Premiership, he deserves to be in the Immortals team,” insisted Dallaglio.
“Whenever the opposition had a really big ball carrier, like a Billy Vunipola or a Jamie Roberts or just someone like a modern-day Jasper Wiese, it was, ‘Joe, see that guy? He’s yours. Every time he gets the ball, you tackle him’… He was outstanding, he won four titles, was very brave, took a lot of punishment but just came back. He made his debut in 1999 for England and he was playing 10, 12 years later. Unbelievable player. He made 36 tackles in a European Cup final in 2004.”
Moving to outside centre, Waters was the Dallaglio choice. “I have gone with someone I know. He was an incredible rugby player. Maybe didn’t get enough international caps. He was the first defensive captain of the much-vaunted Shaun Edwards blitz defence which took Wasps to three consecutive Premiership title, and it is the hardest position on the field to play.
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“Certainly, the hardest position to defend and to stay fit. He was man of the match in countless finals, and he is the poshest man in my team, educated at Harrow school.”
Another Dallaglio selection sure to raise eyebrows was that of Geordan Murphy at full-back. “People will say what about Jason Robinson? There are so many candidates for that particular position, but he is just one of the most talented players I have ever met. Box of tricks, incredible talent, instinctively played well and just great fun to be around.
“If you think about the Irish team now with the likes of Jordan Larmour, (Hugo) Keenan, they’d have Geordan Murphy in that side all day long. Imagine if that pack of Tigers had actually given him the ball a bit more what they would have been capable of achieving. He was a wonderful player and maybe because he played in England, Ireland were just making a statement. Who knows?”
Lawrence Dallaglio’s Immortals XV: 15. Geordan Murphy; 14. Mark Cueto, 13. Fraser Waters, 12. Brad Barritt, 11. Chris Ashton; 10. Charlie Hodgson, 9. Richard Wigglesworth; 1. Marcos Ayerza, 2. Schalk Brits, 3. Will Green, 4. Martin Johnson (capt), 5. Simon Shaw, 6. Joe Worsley, 7. Neil Back, 8. Lawrence Dallaglio.
- Watch BT Sport’s Premiership Immortals on BT Sport 1 from 1pm on Saturday, May 27, to see who makes the greatest Premiership XV of all time. The final episode will be followed by BT Sport’s exclusive live coverage of the Gallagher Premiership final from 2pm on BT Sport 1 btsport.com/immortals
