Spend enough time with Will Carling and you'll quickly come to a conclusion: his deep love for rugby still burns as bright as ever, desperate to see the sport flourish. Has that passion gotten him into trouble in the past? Absolute. It's why, at the age of 22, he told the assembled media to resign during his third press conference as England captain. It's also why Carling is convinced that the Rugby Football Union committee members were desperate to get rid of him during his eight-year spell as captain, which included an appearance in the 1991 Rugby World Cup final and three Grand Slams (which included a series of eleven Grand Slams came to an end). year-long drought).
"Without being funny, I put three of them against the wall on separate occasions because I was so f-- frustrated with them. That is not smart," says Carling during lunch.
Whether it is about payment for attending an event in amateur time, or the argument that players' partners should be flown to away matches, Carling reflects on how quickly the RFU must have regretted Geoff Cooke's decision to give him the youngest captain in English rugby history.
"They must have thought that a 22-year-old, destined for the army and privately educated, would be perfect to captain England. And he turns out to be a nightmare who argues with them all the time, wants things to change from the players' perspective, and is never satisfied.
"There was a whole list of things like, 'Why can't that damn Carling just go away?' I knew they had been after me for a while. After the 1991 Grand Slam we didn't hold a press conference because we were tired of the press in hotel rooms, the players had had enough. I remember Dudley [Wood, RFU secretary] saying, "You come into that room," and telling him, "No, I'm not." They were furious. But then settle it, guys. You are not taking care of us in any way shape or form."
Not to mention the almost comical circumstances in which Carling was sacked as captain before the 1995 Rugby World Cup, caught on a hot mic and referring to the committee as "57 old farts". Carling was watching the Pilkington Cup final between Wasps and Bath at home and, because the volume was turned down, couldn't decipher what the crowd were singing. Rob Andrew, his teammate and the Wasps No.10, later told him: "You ruined that game, didn't you? The crowd was chanting your name the whole time."
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After Andrew and Dean Richards rejected the captaincy offer, Carling met Martin Bayfield ahead of the press conference to reinstate him as England captain, on the condition that he apologized publicly, two days after it was withdrawn. "Bayfield said, 'I'm devastated.' When I asked why he replied: 'Take That has broken up and you are being reinstated as captain, I don't know how much one man can handle'."
Today's English players couldn't be further removed from those days, but while there are several political dilemmas and the game looks alien to thirty years ago, the core principles remain the same. That's why Carling as a leadership mentor in the previous regime under Eddie Jones, having captained England in 59 of his 72 Tests, made perfect sense. He worked closely with Owen Farrell in particular.
"I think it's sad if this is the end of his England career and it ended that way. He's a very proud, passionate English rugby player. And a very good one. I know there was a lot of commentary in the media and on social media, and a lot of it was not complimentary. I think unfortunately a lot of the frustration directed at Owen was frustration at the way England are playing and performing on the pitch. And that wasn't actually his decision."
Farrell's generation has to deal with social media, while Carling was hounded by paparazzi in the 1990s, the face of the sport on such a grand scale that he appeared on primetime television with Mr Blobby: 'The funniest thing was that I saw Noel Edmonds was honestly hurting when I stepped on his feet, I could hear him squealing" - and has previously spoken about the effect attention had on him.
"Nowadays people wonder: could you do it with social media as it is now? Don't know. It was quite intense at the time, but when you're captain of England you know you're going to get more attention than most."
His friendship with Princess Diana, however, was a whole different investigation.
"The front page is very different from the back page. Yeah, it wasn't fun. Hey, a lot of this is my own fault, you can't complain. You have to learn. Relationships that I got wrong... so they became fascinated with that. When you look back on it, you think it was all blown out of proportion, but it turned out to be a good story."
When I ask what moment of his career he is most proud of, I expect to hear that England's Grand Slam drought ended in 1991. Instead, Carling remembers his old midfield partner Jeremy Guscott convincing him to hobble on crutches to a pub for a drink afterwards. Carling's last game as captain in 1996. When he was appointed, the story was about the 'posh little idiot' trying to win over some of England's big hard men: Paul Ackford, Mike Teague, Peter Winterbottom, Paul Rendall , Richards. He walked into the pub that evening and they were all there waiting for him.
"That blew me away," says Carling, visibly emotional. "They were my heroes before I played for England. For me, that was what it was all about. It's not 80,000 people because they don't know who you are. It was them. They had looked at everything. They had taken care of this annoying, posh little idiot who was meant to be their captain. If they thought I had done a good job, that was a really great moment for me." Of that impressive group, Richards was the hardest to win over; the offer of a beer left on the floor of the Murrayfield dressing rooms was perhaps a rare sign of acceptance.
A series of quick questions follow about some of the game's current burning topics, such as suitability for testing. "The only problem I would have is once you make a choice, you make a choice," he says. "I don't think once you've played for one country you should be able to play for another. That doesn't seem right to me, maybe that makes me an old fart. If you have a grandparent, fine, those are the rules. But you certainly can't change your mind. That seems to be getting a bit...you can't have your cake and eat it too.
'While someone like Bundee Aki [who qualified for Ireland on residency]When I watch him play, I don't believe there is a lack of passion and dedication. I don't think the Irish regret that in any way shape or form. The man, I don't think he does.
Why not? He lives here, his family lives here, that's what matters. This is where my family and friends are and who I play for. I understand that and have no problem with it."
As for the sport once again learning to embrace the appeal of its physicality while maintaining safety, he says: "Rugby must use technology in the best way to protect players from injury. But the other part is that rugby is a physical game. The appeal for people to watch it, for some of us to play it, is the gladiatorial nature of it, the courage of the people who play it."
Interspersed are more golden sound bites about his own career - "I played the first few years of professionalism, which were the most boring f-- years of my life, because no one knew what professionals were supposed to be" - while praising the current England women's team. "What an amazing set of ambassadors for young girls in terms of courage, dedication, respect and discipline."
After discussing at length the quality of leadership in the sport (or lack thereof) past or present, you wonder why Carling hasn't decided to grab the game itself by the scruff of the neck. "I love the game. It's exceptional. Who knows, depending on what leadership we see at some point?" The guy who went after the old guys who ran the show. What a twist that would be.
