Dawson knows value of boom and bust against wounded Boks

Twenty-four hours after South Africa's rugby players had inwardly digested the last of the journalistic summaries of their labours in Scotland – some reports faxed over from the republic featured the words "useless" and "disgraceful", others were less complimentary – the England scrum-half Matthew Dawson was asked to respond to the following proposition. That the 2002 Springboks were a busted flush, a soft-centred side with lightweight backs and a powder-puff pack, a bunch of natural-born losers to whom the simple arts of catching, passing and scrummaging had become as mysterious as alchemy.

Now, there is nothing of the nine-stone weakling about Dawson; in his own way, he is probably the toughest, most insanely competitive so-and-so in the England team, give or take the odd Martin Johnson. But on this occasion, he looked mortified, his complexion a whiter shade of pale. "Having listened to that," he said, uncomfortably, "I am trying to think of a better reason to fear these Springboks – and there isn't one." He then harked back to Ian McGeechan's words during the 1997 Lions tour of South Africa: "There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal, and these Boks are wounded."

Dawson knows plenty about the unique demands of sharing a 100m x 80m rectangle of sporting pasture with the Bokke, who, if they no longer bring the certainties of the Dutch Reformed Church and generations of confrontational social and political history to bear on their rugby activities, still regard union supremacy as their birthright. The Northampton half-back has faced them on eight occasions, five with England and three with the Lions, emerging victorious on four of them. He has scored famous tries – one, in Cape Town in 1997, has entered Lions folklore – and been on the sticky end of some horrible defeats, not least in the World Cup three years ago. He understands the nature of the beast.

He also knows what it is to be wounded, both in body and, more pertinently, in spirit. Having attained heroic status in 1998, when he led an umpteenth-string England team from one end of the southern hemisphere to the other and arrived back with head held high and honour intact, he lost the support and confidence of Clive Woodward, the national coach, after captaining the red rose army to defeat on Grand Slam day in Dublin 13 months ago. Dawson had already dunked himself in a pot of boiling water by telling tales out of school during the Lions tour of Australia the previous summer, and was being criticised for his demeanour on the field. From being flavour of the month, he was suddenly in the cod liver oil bracket.

Kyran Bracken, with whom he had been contesting the England No 9 shirt since the mid-1990s, was the governor once again, and when the Saracen delivered a world-class performance against the Wallabies less than a month after the Lansdowne Road débâcle, Dawson was contemplating a lengthy spell of outsidership. He was also struggling for fitness: while he won two more caps off the bench at the fag-end of this year's Six Nations, he pulled out of the summer trip to Argentina on Woodward's advice. That let Andy Gomarsall back into an increasingly congested picture, and left Dawson's Test ambitions finely balanced between reality and fantasy.

By his own admission, he needed two things: a few weeks of quality preparation (fairly straightforward for a player not lumbered with end-of-season tour duties) and a challenging intervention from a stellar coach steeped in man-management know-how and natural authority (not straightforward at all). Cue Wayne Smith, the former All Black outside-half and New Zealand coach, who took over at Northampton shortly before last Christmas. Smith spoke and Dawson listened. The outcome of this unusual arrangement – Dawson is not the greatest listener in the world – could not have been happier.

"Wayne grabbed hold of me, basically," Dawson explained. "He said the things that needed to be said. I'm not trying to be funny here, but there are only so many people who can pose the right kind of challenge to someone who has won 40-odd caps for his country. Wayne is one of them. I was crying out for it to happen, although I'm not sure I realised it at the time. The thing about Wayne is his ability to put himself on a player's wavelength: he is technically and tactically aware and has the deep understanding of someone who has been there and done it, but more than that, he talks the players' language.

"Paul Grayson [Dawson's half-back partner at Franklin's Gardens] will tell you the same thing. When Wayne arrived, Paul was probably number three in the pecking order and saying to himself: 'What the hell do I do here? Do I stay, or do I quit?' At that stage, very few people would have imagined him playing as well as he is right now. But Wayne saw something in him, and challenged him to produce it. You can't put a price on that."

Two recent performances have illustrated the depth of Dawson's recovery from relative mediocrity. His exceptional contribution to Northampton's bold, if ultimately unsuccessful, assault on Gloucester's impressive Premiership record at Kingsholm earlier this month effectively earned him his latest spell in the international limelight, for Gomarsall, his opposite number that day, started the fixture marginally ahead in the selection race. With his big-match temperament and his can-do personality, Dawson invaded his rival's space and rail-roaded Woodward into a decisive reassessment.

Then, seven days ago, he gave George Gregan, the Wallaby captain, a serious hurry-up at Twickenham. This was Dawson in excelsis; by the time he had finished with the celebrated Brumbies half-back, journalists in Australia were calling for their man's demotion to the ranks. A repeat performance today, against the fast-handling Springbok Bolla Conradie, will give Dawson a clear run into the Six Nations and, assuming he continues at his present pitch, a guaranteed starting place on the summer tour of the Antipodes, during which Woodward will finalise his optimum combination for the World Cup.

Yet Dawson senses danger in Conradie: the danger of unfamiliarity. "I like to think I am fairly self-critical as a player, and I like to think I do my homework. Whoever my direct opponent might be, he gets every last piece of my attention and every single second of my time. But Conradie is new to me and familiarity, or rather the lack of it, does complicate matters. I know Gregan of old, just as I knew a lot about Joost van der Westhuizen when he was in the Boks' line-up. With Conradie, I can only go by the tapes until I get some information first hand. All I can say is this: if he is good enough to wear that shirt of theirs, he deserves respect."

For all that, Dawson is a mature cog in a very mature English wheel. He and his colleagues have learned to deal with the occasional shock to the system, rather than be shut down by it. "When we went 12 points behind against the Wallabies last weekend, it felt a little different because it had not happened to us at Twickenham for some time," he said. "But nobody actually articulated that, or gave the slightest sign of panic. Martin Johnson said all the right things, quietly: there was no tub-thumping, no hollering, no 'Come on, boys, we can do this' stuff.' Just a calm, sensible reaction to events."

Which just about sums up Dawson's own approach to the game, now that he has curbed his excesses. Who would have predicted that in the aftermath of Dublin 2001?