DALLAGLIO: DRUG BOASTS WERE LIES

'Confession' Was Made Up To Clinch Big Sponsorship Deal, Says Rugby Player

LAWRENCE Dallaglio sought yesterday to answer the lurid allegations that
may yet ruin his rugby career by portraying his boasts about drug use as
nothing more than the ramblings of a braggart blinded by greed.

Fuelled by the prospect of a UKP500,000 sponsorship deal, generous amounts
of champagne and egged on by a young, blonde "marketing executive", the
former captain of England claimed he had spun out false tales of drug
dealings and chemical highs simply in an attempt to impress.

Although he admitted that he had dabbled in drugs when he was younger, the
Wasps, England and the British Lions flanker used his first appearance
before the media since the story broke to insist that he had never taken
illegal substances during his rugby career.

A contrite Dallaglio faced intense questions about the News of the World
set-up from reporters at Twickenham yesterday. They had had gathered in the
same suite that had been used by Rugby Football Union officials the night
before to announce the end of the player's captaincy. It was a venue with a
rather unfortunate name: "The Spirit of Rugby".

Flanked by a member of his management company and a public relations
consultant, Dallaglio, 26, repeatedly asserted his naivetE9. It was a
performance for which had been preparing for two days. Reading from a
prepared statement and thentaking questions, he was determined not to be
shaken from his line. Drugs are not cool. Drugs are bad for you. Drugs have
no place in sport.

But why, then, if his anti-drugs convictions were so strong, did he make up
such bizarre claims? After severalattempts by Dallaglio to answer the same
question, differently put, it became clear that he had been duped by the
offer of a highly lucrative deal. It was a deal, it seems, that he
wasdesperate to clinch - at any cost.

"I was naive, I was foolish, I was following a line of questioning which
was instigated by these reporters. I wanted to try and impress on them that
I was someone that, that, that they could, they were offering me something
which I was obviously, in terms of the contract they were offering me, they
set the whole thing up to ..."

Here he was floundering, trying desperately not to admit that he had been
blinded by pound signs. Finally, he remembered an apparently far more
worthy aspect of the deal. "I mean, I was interested in becoming involved
in inner-city rugby. What they were offering me was something which, having
been born in Shepherd's Bush, I was genuinely interested in. I have taken
part in coaching clinics throughout this country to promote the game of
rugby in the past.

"And, basically, I was just following the line of questioning that they
were taking and I, as I have already admitted, I have lied to these people,
I made up stories."

As the "executives" made claims about their own drugs use, it appears that
Dallaglio constantly sought to go one better. "These reporters were openly
admitting to me their confessions of what they had done, what they were
into, what they got, what they enjoyed in life; therefore, they were
leading me, by those allegations of their own behaviour, into suggesting
what I might do or don't do. I played along with that game, totally
stupidly and foolishly, and created stories which simply weren't true in an
attempt to fit in with them and obviously to try to impress them in some
way." It was a strategy which could not have been more badly judged.

Yesterday, after having thrown away his chance to lead his national side at
this autumn's Rugby World Cup, Dallaglio was desperately seeking to
persuade the public that, despite his previous lies, he was now telling the
truth.

"I strongly deny the allegations that I have taken drugs throughout my
playing career. I strongly deny the allegations that I have ever dealt
drugs and as I have openly admitted to you here today, I did experiment
with drugs when I was a young man. For that, I'm not proud, for that I
deeply regret, I recognise that that was wrong and since then I have been
completely anti-drugs."

Dallaglio declined to go into details about his former drug habits, saying
only that he did not condone the use of any drugs. Nor did he name the two
other British Lions players whom he is said to have identified as having
taken ecstasy on the 1997 tour to South Africa.

He tried to portray his sporting success as a saving grace: "Rugby has
given me the opportunity to have some sort of purpose in life." But it was
here, too, that Dallaglio's arguments unravelled. The lack of conviction in
his voice betrayed his own doubts - perhaps he realised that the picture of
an Ampelforth-educated university graduate saved from the drug-infested
gutter by an unswerving dedication to rugby was a little unconvincing.

"All I can say to you is that I have been anti-drugs for many, many years.
I detest drugs, they serve no purpose in anyone's life. I have two young
children, so I'm well aware of the implications of drugs," he pleaded. His
partner, Alice Corbett, by whom he has two daughters, was standing by him,
he said.

After almost half an hour of questions, one reporter asked about the
almost-forgotten aspect of the News of the World scoop - the player's
claims that he had enjoyed sex with a dozen Dutch prostitutes. Suddenly,
Dallaglio clammed up. There was a signal from his lawyer, who was standing
in the wings, and the proceedings were summarily wound up with a terse
"Thank you for coming".

Despite the player's expressed desire to be "open and frank", There are
still some things, it seems, about which it has been judged best to keep
quiet.