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PARIS - It was fitting that the last word from the England camp before Saturday's World Cup final should come from hooker Mark "Ronnie" Regan, probably the most garrulous player in the game.
Though when he said: "I'll let my rugby do the talking," few were taking him seriously.
Four years ago Regan was one of the "unlucky eight" who sat in the stands while England won the World Cup in Sydney. Steve Thompson was the undisputed first choice hooker but Dorian West pipped Regan for the bench spot.
Regan, who had formerly been coach Clive Woodward's number one number two in 1997 and 1998 had then fallen out of favour and also missed the 1999 World Cup.
He kept plugging away but when new coach Andy Robinson ignored him for his first game in charge against Canada in 2004, he announced his international retirement.
The arrival of Ashton two years later signalled a change in attitude though and sparked an remarkable comeback that will lead to him, at 35, walking out to play in Saturday's (Sun NZT) final.
"I still had that pride, I wanted to prove I could still play the international game, prove it to myself and my peers," he said.
"Friends were saying 'why aren't you playing for England, you're playing well for Bristol?'. The coaching staff changed and that was the door opening, I could just see a glimmer of hope.
"I called Brian Ashton and said 'I'm not saying I'm the best rugby player in the world but I'll pull that England shirt on and play with passion and pride and if I'm good enough I'd like you to pick me'. He said: 'That's all I want from a player'."
Regan, a British Lion in 1997, was thrown in at the deep end when he was picked for the summer tour of South Africa, in a squad shorn of almost 30 leading players.
"My job on tour was to be proactive, to help the younger guys try to get through the panning we were likely to be getting," he said.
As it turned out, he ended up looking after them more than he had imagined as many of the squad were struck down by illness.
Regan, a West Countryman with a constitution buoyed by a lifetime of drinking, offered an alternative cure to the England doctors. "I kept telling them they should drink more cider," he said. "I never get ill."
He played in both tests and, despite receiving the predicted "pannings" impressed Ashton with his combative attitude.
His opposite number John Smit, the South Africa captain he will face again on Saturday, had a different memory.
"He talked to me more in those two games than my wife has in the last 10 years," he said.
Regan featured in all three warm-up games in August and, suddenly, he was England's first choice again.
He would then have been delighted to have heard Wallaby coach John Connolly say before the quarterfinal: "He's a niggler and we've spoken to (tournament head referee) Paddy O'Brien about him and hopefully he's aware of it. He continually oversteps the mark, literally and verbally."
Like Brian Moore, whom he succeeded as England's first choice, Regan has built his career on winding up the opposition but, also like Moore, he has backed up the talk with action.
"He had this reputation as a bit of a buffoon, but he's a long way from being anything of the sort," said Ashton.
"He's extremely knowledgeable and a formidable presence in our group."
- REUTERS
