Yates is on track after 10 years in wilderness

After all these years, a home debut represents the crucial final stage in the long process of Test rehabilitation for a player punished by the RFU for a crime which he has always sworn he did not commit.

The trial awaiting him during the World Cup eliminators starting against Wales on August 4 will be a rare privilege compared to the ordeal of the one he went through almost 10 years ago.

A guilty verdict and six-month ban for biting Simon Fenn's ear during a Bath cup clash with London Scottish in January 1998 derailed his England career which had taken off in Argentina the previous summer. Now, against all odds, Yates is back where he was a decade ago - in contention to be among the chosen few for the World Cup and closer to achieving his ultimate goal than at any time since his Premiership debut 13 years ago.

The Saracens loosehead, now 34, has clambered his way back among the front row elite by the dint of old-fashioned pride in performance, which enabled him to become the first British player to make a Test comeback after a gap of 10 years.

Unlike many on the fringe for whom the two end-of-season matches in South Africa marked the start and finish of an England career, Yates made a big enough impression to justify promotion to the training squad for the World Cup.

"To make the final 30 would be unbelievable," he says. "I didn't consider the World Cup a realistic goal until a few months ago. I don't think anyone can say where they stand in the pecking order so it's a matter of getting on with business over the next few weeks.

"I never gave up hope of playing for England again, never lost the desire. You've got to keep going and keep trying to nudge your way back in. The knockbacks make it tough but that's the nature of sport."

None of his contemporaries had to cope with a case which became a cause celebre. Yates has always protested his innocence, yet without any overt bitterness at what he clearly perceives as a miscarriage of justice. The case cost him the best part of £100,000 in legal fees and lost earnings, a factor in dissuading him from taking a civil action.

"We did look at it but financially it was never viable," he adds. "It was hard to take at the time and I was very aggrieved by it and always will be. But you get on with your life. Had I allowed that to simmer I'd probably not have kept on playing. That incident was only a very small part of my career. It cost me a six-month ban but I didn't regard it as a significant part of my career.

"The only place I get plenty of banter about it is at Gloucester. Whenever I go there I get a fair bit of stick from The Shed. I get all sorts of stuff but you couldn't print any of it. They're about the only ones who remind me... and you!"

Born on the Canadian prairie but raised in the Wiltshire town of Calne, Yates is one of six props ready to bust a gut and a bit more besides battling for a minimum of four places - Phil Vickery, 31, Julian White, 34, Matt Stevens, 24, Andrew Sheridan, 28, and Perry Freshwater, who will be 34 this month.

Vickery and White are on pole as the two tightheads, Stevens' ability to play on either side doubles his value, which leaves Yates in a three-cornered fight with Sheridan and Freshwater for the second loosehead position.

Sheridan ought to be an automatic choice but recurring injuries have put him out of England's last eight matches and raised alarms at management level. If patience, endurance and an unyielding refusal to give up hope count for anything, Yates will make it a no-contest.