Lawrence Dallaglio

In the 67th minute of the Premiership final, Dallaglio was substituted, and received a standing ovation by the sell out crowd.

Lorenzo Bruno Nero Dallaglio (born 10 August 1972), known as Lawrence Dallaglio, is an English retired rugby union player, former captain of England, and 2016 inductee of the World Rugby Hall of Fame.

Dallaglio played as a flanker or number eight for London Wasps and never played for another club, having arrived at Sudbury as a teenager.

In 1985, as a 12-year-old chorister in the King's House School choir, Dallaglio and 20 other choristers sang backing vocals on the song "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner.

His sister Francesca, a 19-year-old student ballerina, died in the Marchioness disaster in 1989.

Because Dallaglio's father, Vincenzo, is Italian, and his English-born mother, Eileen, was of Irish descent he was eligible to play for both Italy and Ireland, as well as England, and in the early 1990s he turned down an invitation to play for Ireland.

Dallaglio was a member of the inaugural World Cup Sevens-winning squad with England in 1993.

In 1998 Dallaglio became club captain when Dean Ryan and Rob Andrew left for Newcastle in October 1995, taking four experienced players with them.

Dallaglio held the team together and 12 months later led Wasps to the first English league title of the professional era.

Dallaglio had a good season in 1999–2000, when he regained the club captaincy.

Although Wasps' league form was disappointing, he led them to the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup and to a second successive Tetley's Bitter Cup victory.

Playing in all three positions in the back row, he won 85 caps for England, and was part of the team that won the 2003 World Cup.

He is one of a very small number of players to have won both the Rugby World Cup and Sevens World Cup.

He went on three tours with the British & Irish Lions, winning three caps.

Dallaglio now regularly works as a pundit on television rugby coverage and on radio.

Dallaglio was born in Shepherd's Bush, London.

He was educated at King's House School in Richmond and boarded at Ampleforth College where he was affectionately known as "Del Boy", (though he actually attained his A-levels at The Oxford School of Learning), and at Kingston University to study Property Development.

This only became known in 2005, when the Musicians' Union, having realised that the choristers had not been paid royalties on the record, attempted to track them down.

As part of the same choir, Dallaglio sang at the wedding of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Dallaglio returned from an ankle injury early in the 2006–07 domestic season to reclaim the club captaincy at Wasps, but an indifferent Guinness Premiership season ended with them failing to qualify for the play-offs for the first time since the introduction of the knockout system.

However, Dallaglio and his teammates saved their best performances for the Heineken Cup; he led the club to its second European championship win on 20 May 2007.

The final, played at Twickenham, set a world record for the highest attendance figure for a club rugby match (at around 82,000).

Wasps' opponents, Leicester Tigers had already won the EDF Energy Cup and the Guinness Premiership trophies and were favourites to achieve an unprecedented Treble, especially as they had beaten Wasps 40–26 at Welford Road less than a month earlier, but it was Wasps who emerged as victors, winning the game 25–9.

"Everyone was telling us this was the best Leicester team ever, so that must make us the best Wasps team ever. To win this competition once is fantastic, so I'm delighted to win it again, and it puts us in a very elite group of clubs who have done that. It shows what we are about. Leicester Tigers have had a fantastic season and the strength and depth to compete on three fronts. They have done that fantastically well, but we targeted this competition at the start of the season and we've won. The way you win these games is with belief. We had the media saying we were second best in the scrum, line out, defence and the back three, but we had belief in our team and I think that's half the battle against Leicester. I think we showed maturity in the way we played in the second half to make sure Leicester didn't score a single point let alone a try, and that says everything about our defence.

If you defend well at the highest level you win trophies."

In the following season he joined London Wasps late because of the Rugby World Cup.

He returned to find London Wasps struggling near the bottom of the Guinness Premiership.

Wasps fortunes quickly changed.

They made it through the group in the EDF Cup, and started climbing up the table.

Despite this good form in domestic competitions, they narrowly failed to make it out of their Heineken Cup group.

They lost out to Munster, the eventual winners, but could have made it out if they had beaten them in Ireland in the final matchday of pool play.

They soon hit top form in the Premiership, winning game after game.

They reached the play-offs and drew a home match against Bath.

They won the game 21-6, but lost rising star Danny Cipriani to an injury.

Leicester Tigers beat Gloucester to qualify for the Premiership final.

This match was to be Lawrence Dallaglio's last match, and it was to be played in front of a capacity crowd of 81,600 at Twickenham.

They were made to fight, but eventually won 26-16.

Dallaglio later claimed it was Wasps' greatest Premiership title, noting the damaging effect the Rugby World Cup had on their squad.

Dallaglio made a sly appearance, at blindside flanker, for London Wasps "A" Team in the Guinness A League on 8 September 2008.

He was getting game time before he captained an England XV for the Help For Heroes game at Twickenham on 20 September later that month.