RUGBY/Six Nations' Preview: Robert Kitson meets Steve Thompson, the hooker Clive Woodward has not dared to drop.
Here is a statistic which neatly sums up Clive Woodward's new England. A remarkable 45 different players have won full caps in the past 14 months and all but one have sampled a victorious Test dressing-room. So far in this Six Nations Woodward has selected 34 players in his match-day squads, a marked contrast with England's last Grand Slam season in 1995 when the same XV started all four matches.
It is a different era, different game, etc., but, injuries permitting, it helps if the best team occasionally play together. Which raises an awkward but key question: are these high numbers a pre-World Cup bonus or the underlying reason why England are wrestling for consistency? The ideal person to ask is the only man ever-present on England's starting teamsheets since the start of last year's Six Nations.
That person, surprisingly perhaps, is the hooker Steve Thompson. Martin Johnson, the captain, has started only eight of his side's last 12 Tests and even Jonny Wilkinson, Richard Hill and Will Greenwood can boast a mere 11.
Maximum respect is due, then, to Thompson, who was in Argentina last June when assorted team-mates stayed home and, at the callow age of 24, is now such a solid fixture in England's front row that people tend to overlook him.
At 6ft 2in and around 18st 3lb this may sound tough, but Thompson is perfectly happy. The Northampton powerhouse is winning his 13th cap today yet remains unspoilt enough to relish only one interview request because it means he can get to lunch quicker. Once wedged into a chair in a quiet corner, though, he talks as good a game as he now frequently plays.
For a start, he insists unbeaten England have nothing to reproach themselves for. "What people don't appreciate is the opposition we're playing," he says, discussing the massive expectations that now surround England. "Everyone says 'You'll beat teams by 60 points' but it doesn't happen any more. The Italians showed that. I think we made more tackles than England have ever made. You just have to make the most of the periods when you are on top."
Nor, in his opinion, is England's inability to field the same pair of props for more than two consecutive Tests any lasting handicap. All concerned do enough scrummaging in training to cope in emergencies, and the mobile Saint argues that, in rugby, familiarity does not always breed content. He may be the exception to the rule at Test level, but he reckons even the best players become less weary and/or complacent if they are axed occasionally.
"I played 39 games last season and you're bound to have dips in form. Instead of getting annoyed when you're dropped you have to use it as a positive and just chill out. I couldn't do that before. I'd wind myself up and be really pissed off."
It would be incorrect, though, to say the maturing of Thompson has been inevitable. Born in Hemel Hempstead, he was three when his parents divorced and he went to live with his grandparents in Cromer. At 10 his mother remarried and young Steve took his stepfather's surname of Walter.
By the time he was 14 he had put on weight and people suggested rugby. He joined the youth section at the Old Scouts club in Northampton where he played with a "tall skinny bean" called Ben Cohen. After he graduated to Saints' development team, Northampton's then coach Ian McGeechan, now in charge of Scotland, proposed a switch from flanker to the front row.
Within four years he had changed his name back to Thompson and made the England team. As Cohen put it this week: "He was a bit wayward as a kid but rugby's put him on the straight and narrow."
Woodward swiftly realised "Wally" was a natural who simply needed to learn how to throw in. He says: "At first I took a lot of criticism, especially from Clive, that I couldn't hit a barn door. The turning point was England's tour to North America in 2001 when Clive told me I had to live with Simon Hardy, the throwing coach, for the whole trip. We practised up on hotel roofs, in car parks, everywhere."
Now he hones his specialist skills almost as assiduously as Wilkinson and his accuracy improves by the game.
His personal life has often been tangled but, ironically given today's opponents, he credits his new-found inner peace to his Scottish girlfriend of two years, Fiona, and her Glaswegian family.
"I didn't have much going for me beforehand but someone's looked down on me. For the first time I've really got a family behind me and I've got a good, stable life. I wasn't very happy in myself before but now I can see a great future ahead."
