Rugby Union: England call on Pears to run the risk: The reluctant full-back has overcome a catalogue of calamity to reach Paris today. Steve Bale reports

THE RIPENING of David Pears has seemed to take an eternity. At Parc des Princes this afternoon he finally becomes an England first choice, but it is going on six years since the selectors first picked Pears for the B team.

His career has finally borne fruit, so to speak, with England growing desperate for the back-line spark it needs a penetrative full-back to provide. Thus when England bludgeoned to the 1991 Grand Slam, Simon Hodgkinson (60 points) was a metronomic kicker and they scored five tries; when they rapiered to the '92 Slam, Jon Webb (67) was a metronomic kicker but he also ran fast and loose and they scored 15 tries.

The retiring Geoff Cooke and his selectorial colleagues, having concluded Jonathan Callard was more Hodgkinson than Webb, have turned the responsibility for try- creation to Pears. This is fearful responsibility, not just because today's game is in France, nor even because England have not scored a try for 12 months, but because Pears has scarcely started a comeback from long-term, repeated injury.

Indeed three tentative appearances for Harlequins have been enough to win him his place after a catalogue of calamity that might have persuaded one less determined to forget it. During the past 18 months, neck, back, jaw, groin, knee and hand have been the parts of the Pears anatomy that have suffered from his desperate misfortune.

'To call it agony would be a mild way of putting what I've been through,' he said. 'It has been one thing and another, a constant succession of injury, rest period, training, restart date and then another injury. I've become almost as fed up with people asking me when I'd be playing again as the injuries themselves.'

For Pears, 26, this has been all the more frustrating for the knowledge that before the injuries he had established himself in selectors' minds as their alternative outside- half to Rob Andrew. He would still prefer to be playing in the position of his rugby upbringing.

Pears was the chosen outside-half when England toured Argentina without Andrew in 1990, and won two caps. He was also Andrew's deputy on the tour to Australia and Fiji the following year and then in the World Cup squad, though he and today's scrum-half, Dewi Morris, were the only ones not to get a game during England's euphoric march to the final.

After Pears had spent the '92 championship on the bench, his prospects, like his body, fell apart. Though Stuart Barnes was a manifestly superior player, it is by no means fanciful to imagine that he would not have re-emerged for England if Pears had remained fit and well. But circumstances being what they are, Pears has had to turn to full- back and in the longer term his path back to outside-half is now blocked by the exceptional Mike Catt.

'When I went to Argentina it was a huge opportunity,' Pears said. 'I relished the opportunity and, though it was a very hard tour, I felt I didn't play too badly and I definitely came back a better player. I came of age in the game at Tucuman when everything was going wrong and I put over the winning kick from half-way near the end.

'At the time I thought I could handle it but in the end I didn't get a game in the World Cup and when the injuries started all I could do was watch what was happening from the outside. When Andrew played badly Barnes got his chance and played well, but I felt I could have been there. Instead I was out of the pecking order and it didn't help when Quins wanted to play me full-back.'

This switch has in fact been his international salvation but, even so, Pears will probably always remain a reluctant full-back. From his days at Workington Grammar School and with the Aspatria club, through the season he spent at Sale in 1989- 90 and on to his move to London (where he is a broker in the City) and Harlequin FC, he was never other than an outside-half.

This was where he played for Quins in the 1991 cup final defeat of Northampton, though by the '92 final, which was lost to Barnes and Bath in extra time, he had been shifted to full-back - despite having had a splendid showing as a second-half replacement for Andrew in England's win in Paris.

'If it means representing my country, I will play anywhere,' Pears said, using a well-worked cliche. 'I believe I'm perfectly capable of playing at full-back and making a success of it. And, having played at Parc des Princes before, I'm quite confident about coping with the pressure I know I'll be under there.

'But deep down I am a fly-half, I've played nearly all my rugby there, and anyone in his right mind who had that sort of background would want to play there.' But as if to show what he could do, another of Pears's replacement jobs was for Hodgkinson in the 1991 World Cup build-up game against the then Soviet Union and as an attacking full-back he was superb.

Whether he can do the same in this more elevated sort of company and in this sort of atmosphere is another matter. Webb used to hit the line hard and at pace, whereas Pears is a mazier, more elusive type. At the same time, the removal of the outside-half's decision-making responsibility is probably no bad thing and he does have a genuine footballing talent.

Dick Best, the England coach, once said of Pears: 'He has tremendous natural skill in using his feet, whether it be running and side- stepping or kicking the ball.' For the moment the goal-kicking has passed from the discarded Callard to Andrew, but if Pears makes a success of his expected return to kicking for Harlequins at Northampton next Saturday, we can expect him to be doing it for England as well before long.

And that would complete a rehabilitation that Pears himself agrees is among the least likely stories of this rugby season. 'Initially all I wanted to do was get playing again, without interruption, for Quins,' he said. 'To be included in the England A squad for this weekend was fairly extraordinary in itself.'

Having joined the As at Richmond last Saturday, Pears was abruptly summoned to the senior team at training on Sunday. It was one of the last acts of Cooke, Pears's fellow-Cumbrian, before he announced his imminent retirement as England's manager. 'I was a bit shocked,' Pears said. 'I just hope it wasn't my selection that made up his mind for him.'