KEY POINTS:
PARIS - Simon Shaw has spent four painful years as the living embodiment of a rugby quiz question and the England lock has got the chance to force a re-write.
The only England player with a World Cup winner's medal who did not see a minute's action is determined to ensure that this time he plays some role in his country's success and that anything he takes home will find a more prominent home than the back of a kitchen drawer where his 2003 gong and MBE reside.
He has made a good start, not least in the quarter-final against Australia when his 2.03m, 124kg bulk helped shove the Wallaby pack somewhere beyond the Black Stump.
For one of the biggest players in the tournament he also displayed some deft handling.
However, Shaw's stock has not always been so high, despite consistently impressive displays at club level, and it was with good reason that he earned the tag of England's unluckiest player.
He was all set to make his international debut at the 1995 World Cup before ruptured knee ligaments ended the dream.
Four years later, weeks after being named man of the match in a warm-up win over Wales, he was culled from the final squad by Clive Woodward.
In 2003 he also missed out and when he was called up as an emergency replacement for Danny Grewcock the nearest he got to a taste of the action was as an unused replacement in the quarterfinal.
Once dismissed by Woodward as being too much like Martin Johnson, England's current coaching team are talking about Shaw as the "natural replacement" for the former talismanic captain.
Shaw, though, has played down the plaudits.
"I don't think I'm doing anything extraordinary, nothing that I don't do week in week out for my club," he said on Thursday.
The difference is that he is being selected on a regular basis and is able to relax and play his game without having to worry whether it would be good enough to retain his place.
"Consistency of selection is a key element and I've only had that on a couple of occasions before," he said.
This year, with an awesome display for Wasps in their Heineken Cup final victory over Leicester in May, there was no way the 34-year-old was going to be left at home again.
"I'd said previously that I thanked God I played for a club where I could be in the shop window consistently," he said. "I thought I should at least be given a look."
England face France in a semifinal at the Stade de France on Saturday (Sunday 8am NZt).
- REUTERS
