Matt Dawson: Nine Lives. Matt Dawson

match. It was not a case of wanting a bigger bedroom or more luxuries. The food was poor, there were no meeting rooms, and we were sharing the hotel with a couple of other international teams as well as the rugby media.

      The precedent he set that day ensured that now England want for nothing in their accommodation. At home we are based at the luxurious Pennyhill Park in Bagshot, where our privacy is guaranteed. We even have a training pitch within the grounds. When we have down time, it is exactly that. You can wander around and you can sit and play backgammon or cards and speak freely without being worried someone is around the corner listening. Your time is your own. Some journalists have told me they need to be close to the squad because they feel certain information is slow to be released to the public domain. My own view is that you have to have a certain respect for the process. I don’t think when things go wrong you can expect the first thought to be, ‘Oh, we’ve got to tell the press about it.’ Whether it be injuries, selection or de-selection, we must be allowed time to get it right first, and then make it public.

      On the Tour from Hell England patently did not do the business yet, as I sat on the pitch at Newlands at the end of our final game, soaked to the skin and comparing a record of played seven, lost seven to the elation of Lions victory on the same pitch a year earlier, a peculiar thought crossed my mind. For all the problems we had encountered, for all the defeats we had suffered, for all the insults that had been hurled in our direction in three different countries, I would not have swapped the experience for the world. It was an absolutely essential building block to where I am now. During those five weeks I gathered a huge amount of knowledge on how to communicate with players and management, and the openness and honesty that are central to the person I am now can be traced back to that voyage of discovery in June and July 1998.

      England tour to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa 1998: squad and results

      Forwards: Darren Crompton (0 caps at start of tour), Will Green (1), Duncan Bell (0), Phil Vickery (1), Graham Rowntree (15), Tony Windo (0), George Chuter (0), Phil Greening (3), Richard Cockerill (9), Garath Archer (10), Rob Fidler (0), Danny Grewcock (5), Dave Sims (0), Ben Sturnham (0), Lewis Moody (0), Steve Ojomoh (11), Ben Clarke (32), Pat Sanderson (0), Tony Diprose (7), Richard Pool-Jones (0)

      Backs: Tim Stimpson (6), Matt Perry (7), Austin Healey (11), Matt Moore (0), Nick Beal (2), Tom Beim (0), Spencer Brown (0), Dominic Chapman (0), Steve Ravenscroft (0), Stuart Potter (0), Jos Baxendell (0), Jonny Wilkinson (1), Alex King (1), Josh Lewsey (0), Matt Dawson (capt., 11), Scott Benton (0), Peter Richards (0)

      (P7, WO, DO, L7, F88, A328)

       Test: Australia 76 England 0 (Brisbane, 6 June)

      New Zealand A 18 England 10 (Hamilton, 13 June)

      New Zealand Academy 50 England 32 (Invercargill, 16 June)

       Test: New Zealand 64 England 22 (Dunedin, 20 June)

      NZ Maori 62 England 14 (Rotorua, 23 June)

       Test: New Zealand 40 England 10 (Auckland, 27 June)

       Test: South Africa 18 England 0 (Cape Town, 4 July)

5(i) Misunderstood HATE MAIL, HATED MALE

      ‘Dawson, you’re a prick!’

      The opening line hit me between the eyes.

      ‘You’re a disgrace to your team, to yourself and to your country. I’m glad you lost. In fact I couldn’t be happier. Thank God I’m not English.’

      There was no signature on the letter, which had been penned in scruffy handwriting. Only a South Wales postmark on the envelope offered any clue as to its source.

      I took a bite of toast and shuffled through the rest of the pile. A couple of bills, a flyer offering deep-pan pizzas delivered within 30 minutes of ordering ‘or your money back’, and another letter addressed by hand to Matt Dawson, England captain. It was from an elderly gentleman who got straight to the point. He had fought in World War Two and he was disgusted by the way I had led my team. Back in his day, he wrote, I would not have survived as the leader of a platoon. The language was more acceptable, but the sentiment was the same.