Focus on the scrumhalves: He's cocky, he's a match-winner, his girlfriend is a former Miss Northern Ireland, he's a lippy, feisty, in-yer-face competitor on the pitch, he can seem a bit moody off it, where he's not shy about giving his opinion, and he is a burgeoning TV pundit.

Is it any wonder opponents and even some of the English media don't like him?

Yet he's also a more mellow, wiser and more mature person nowadays, who has evolved into a mentally tougher and even more valuable component of the English rugby team. He also gets an unfair press and he's still living down his diatribe in a newspaper column against the Lions management when he was deemed surplus to requirements for their Test team two years ago. There was, of course, a damned good reason for his discontent.

"I think he was pissed off on the Lions tour that he wasn't first-choice," says England and Lions coach Phil Larder. "That was his major problem, and he's first-choice with us. That makes a big difference to a player." Obviously, more so to Dawson.

Accordingly, when a group of mostly Aussie journalists descended on him during the week, they were only interested in baiting him for a headline. But Dawson has learned his lesson, and he wasn't biting.

That day's papers revealed that because of a few run-ins with Andre Watson, George Gregan had vowed to bite his lip in the final. So how's this for an opening hand grenade: "So then, is there any chance on earth of George Gregan keeping his mouth shut?" "Anyway," says Dawson, laughing openly and simply turning away. Next question.

Gregan was only going to get plaudits. "Whenever people ask me who is the best scrumhalf you've played against, I would always say George. His all-round game is impeccable. I know he gets a lot of stick from the Australian public and media at certain stages of his career. He might not have the greatest service that anyone has ever seen, or the best boot, but his all-round game is second to none. He's got everything. He's got a silver service, he's got a great boot, he runs the game very well, his support lines are fantastic, he organises his forwards, he links well with his backs, and he's always going to be a threat to the opposition around the fringes. I mean, to question his rugby over the last year or so I thought was fairly ludicrous really."

Dawson also described Watson as the best referee in the world and agreed with Gregan that when it comes to the big games with the South African in charge, "it's time to keep your mouth closed".

So they prod him one more time. One of Toutai Kefu's weekly wind-ups was that Dawson could be rattled. Asked if he thought this was representative of the Wallabies' thinking, Dawson smiled: "I've no idea. You'll have to ask the Australians that."

Another bait. The Wallabies have supposedly been replaying his celebratory punching-the-air after England's last-ditch 21-18 win over Australia in Twickenham three years ago as evidence of his arrogance.

"If they need to recall that from two or three years ago then let them do so. I'm not an arrogant player. I'm chirpy, I'm confident, it's the way I play.

"It would be very easy for me to give you reasons why I did that but I'm not into tit-for-tat. The camera caught me doing it. I was pumped up. We'd not beaten Australia in a while, I was enjoying myself - if I need to apologise for that then I will do."

But the accompanying smile indicated it might not be the purest act of contrition. "Let's get on with the World Cup final."

He deflected the example of George Smith's late hit on Justin Marshall in the semi-final and the potential targeting of him, the potential for lippy exchanges between himself and Gregan, and whether he'll be indulging in his trademark tap-and-goes off quick penalties. "I've got the game plan in my back pocket, do you want it?"

Asked what age will he be at the next World Cup. "I'll be 35." Asked about his retirement plans, he gave a withering look: "I'll make it (that decision) when I'm good and ready." And he was off.

However, one-on-one, away from the baiting pack, he's a personable, eminently talkative bloke. He's something of a barometer of this England side in that he has been interpreted as arrogant, but it's worth stressing that they've come across as anything but in the past fortnight. Not only has he never played in a better side, or under a better management, he also says this is the most humble English side he's played in.

"I accept this is quite recent because I played in England teams where we were an arrogant side. There's an element of humility about the English side now, headed up by Clive, and some of it is press talk and you say the right things but certainly we're giving out the respect that I think other teams are giving to us within the rugby community. You talk to other rugby players and yes, they want to beat us. Like, we know when we're playing against the All Blacks, yeah, these are the greatest side ever. But that's part of the rugby circuit, and we have to accept within the newspapers and TV and supporters, whether it be the other nations in the home countries, we're going to get a little bit of stick. But that's all it is, it's how we deal with it. To change it, we would need to change history."

Dawson recognises his own younger self in the devotion of Jonny Wilkinson, but, coming across again as something of a wise old pro, he has changed his approach to the game. "Part and parcel of my career now is what happens outside of rugby which actually influences my rugby. I know someone like Jonny Wilkinson is very, very focused and determined and all the rest of it, and when it is work-time I am, I know I am, but I've actually learned that my rugby performances are enhanced when my emotional recovery, if you want to call it that, is organised and regular. Whether it be my golf or spending some time with Joanne or my friends and going out for dinner. I think just because of the nature of me being in this environment for 12 or 13 years, I need to have that release."

Then you remember, of course, Dawson is old enough to have played in the amateur era. For example, having attended the post-match banquet when Ireland denied England the Grand Slam with that famous win in Lansdowne Road in 2001, Dawson gave one of the most gracious speeches you could wish to hear on what must have been a harrowing day as stand-in captain for the injured Martin Johnson.

Indeed Dawson cherishes the traditional bonhomie the professional game has inherited. "When we lost the Grand Slam game to Ireland in Dublin, numerous Irish people were congratulating us on winning the Six Nations even though we'd lost the game. They were saying 'we've all won, we've won the game, you've won the Six Nations, come on, let's go and party.' You sit back and you think 'well, okay, we're a bit annoyed to have lost but as you put it like that, then great'.

"I think that's the beauty of the game of rugby - pretty much everyone is there because it's a game of rugby, it's not life or death. The moment it does get like that, the day I couldn't walk down the road after winning or losing a game without worrying about being mobbed or jumped on, or verbally abused, then that'll be a sad day."

He cites the return trip to Dublin for this year's Grand Slam decider when England finally reached the first of their holy grails as how professionalism has dimmed the celebrations. "It was difficult that night in Dublin because the week after I had the Powergen Cup final against Gloucester, so it was never going to be too big a night. But we still had a good one - we went out, had a dinner and that was over fairly early, which was good, and just ended up with a load of the lads in a nightclub, with our partners. We had a dance and a singsong, drank a few beers and partied the night away but it could have been a lot heavier. But those days aregone, unfortunately," he says, smiling.

In his younger days, Dawson was more impetuous in what he said and did, and no less than with Ian McGeechan's conversion of his Northampton team-mate Steve Thompson from flanker to hooker, there's a debt owed the Scottish grey fox for Dawson's evolution into one of the world's foremost scrumhalves and arguably an even more telling weapon in England's armoury.

Sure, the tap-and-goes and the snipes from the base are not as numerous. But McGeechan having taught him to curtail them and time them to maximum effect, Dawson now has the experience and wiles to trust his instinct. Lawrence Dallaglio cites Dawson's extravagant dummy and try in the second Lions Test against the Springboks as a prime example of the way Dawson now invariably "makes the right calls in the big moments". Typical of modern trends perhaps (Justin Marshall, Agustin Pichot, Fabien Galthie being other examples), Dawson's service may not be the sharpest in the world but he has everything.

Multi-skilled, a key component of the defensive system according to Larder, he's also one of the main decision-makers. And at this stage of his career, having achieved so much, Dawson is perhaps like an experienced golfer who focuses primarily on the majors, or indeed a team which finds it easier to rise for the bigger games.

"I love to play my rugby in a pressure environment. I think a lot of what I do is not seen by everyone else, because of the way the game has evolved. It might be an important call, it might just be a gentle slap on the backside for a forward that gives them an edge, it might be communicating with them in some other way, and not necessarily just the obvious, like a kick, run or break. And subsequent to that, those big pressure games are when you need those little bits and pieces."

And you know this more mature, more intelligent player will provide exactly that.