Clive Woodward sends Lawrence Dallaglio one final message

Woodward chose Dallaglio to be his first England captain when he became head coach in 1997, stood by him during drug allegations two years later and made him a key figure in the 2003 World Cup-winning team.

Former Leicester centre Woodward said: "The club are in my blood and while I am delighted to see him finishing his career at Twickenham and will wish him good luck in that text, it won't be too much good luck!

"It is very hard to compare players from different eras but, in his peer group, Lol is right up there with Martin Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson.

"Lol always had a serious edge to him and was never a 'yes' man which I really appreciated. If you want to be the No1 team in the world - which we all agreed was the ultimate target - then you need that edge.

"If there were serious issues that needed addressing then you knew that guys like Lol would speak up and let you know exactly where they stood."

Woodward famously described Dallaglio as acting "like a prat" during the Sunday newspaper 'sting' that saw him lose the national captaincy in 1999, with Johnson taking over.

That period shook English rugby to leave Dallaglio's career in the balance and Woodward said: "Lol got badly stitched up during that period but I never had any doubt he would come back better and stronger.

"If I had thought he had been guilty of anything other than naivety, then I would have said so. I would never have backed him so strongly."

Woodward believes Dallaglio can follow Johnson's lead and become a key management figure for club and country. The Wasps captain is taking his level three RFU coaching qualifications and will help select the Lions back-row forwards for next year's tour of South Africa.

"If Lol is single-minded then he can be a success as a coach or manager," said Woodward, who is also director of elite performance at the British Olympic Association.

"He would do a very good job but he can't have any distractions."

For now, Dallaglio is focused on finishing his outstanding club career with another trophy, having helped Wasps rise from near the bottom of the Premiership in October - when they had a dozen players at the World Cup - to second place at the end of the regular season.

Eight successive wins took them hurtling into the play-offs and now they face the only other team who can match their success in the last decade.

Wasps and Leicester have taken it in turns to dominate English domestic and European rugby and the clubs contested last season's Heineken Cup Final, which followed Tigers'Premiership victory.

The antipathy between the teams - encapsulated by a well-used picture of Dallaglio and Corry grabbing each other's throats during a match - will ensure that sentiment is left off the pitch at Twickenham.

The match is an 83,000 sell-out which is testament to the success of the Premiership this season, despite the disruptions caused by the World Cup.

The supporters point to the fact that Leicester and Wasps were badly hit by international call-ups during two periods of the season and then came up strongly on the rails when those players were back in the fold.