“I don’t think I would have made it in England at all,” says Gallagher, who was born in south London and moved to New Zealand as a teenager.
“I was from Lewisham but I couldn’t see a clear pathway. I would have had to have made a name for myself in New Zealand to be recognised back in England.” Which is, eventually, what happened. But not before Gallagher, a buccaneering 15, had won 18 All Blacks Test caps and the 1987 World Cup. And it was to rugby league side Leeds that Gallagher returned, triggering an exodus of All Black stars to the dark side that only began to be stemmed when union went full-blown professional in the mid-1990s.