Paris debut is music to the ears of Leeds' late developer Hall

Dave Hadfield talks to the Headingley winger, who is determined to strike the right chord on his first international outing

An alto sax gathering cobwebs at Ryan Hall's home is the natural accompaniment to a rugby league career which is doing anything but. The last time the Leeds winger was in Paris, it was on a European tour with his school jazz orchestra; tonight he will make his England debut there against France after proving that it is possible to make up for lost time.

In an era where most promising players are identified and signed-up by their mid-teens, Hall is a late developer. When most of his contemporaries had attracted professional offers, he was still playing for his local amateur club, Oulton Raiders – and playing his sax.

"I'd been playing there [Oulton] since I was 12 and I was 18 before Leeds picked me up," he recalls. After just a year in the system at Headingley, Tony Smith – then Rhinos and now England coach – promoted him to the first team squad, and Hall had caught up.

On the face of it, Hall might seem to suffer from not having the lengthy grounding that others have had, but Smith believes that his attributes outweight that.

"He's a very, very bright young man," Smith says. "It's down to his intelligence as well as his application that he's made the progress he has. He's a great story, because he shows that you can take to our game in your late teens and make a success of it."

He has certainly made a success of it over the last 12 months. He might only have started 12 Super League games for Leeds last season, but he was in the side for the Grand Final victory over St Helens, scoring a crucial try from what his coach Brian McClennan described as the first time he had ever kicked the ball.

This season, he has played every game and is Super League's leading try-scorer with 14 so far.

"It's finding that consistency that has been the thing," he says, giving much of the credit for that to a man at the other end of his international career, Leeds centre Keith Senior. "There's no one better than Keith at putting his winger away. He knows just what to do with the ball and I thank him for that.

"At the same time, I've scored some individual tries this season, rather than Keith doing everything for me. But he's a great presence in the dressing room, we get on really well and I've learned a lot from him."

Senior will not be in Paris, having finally called time on his international career, and Hall will be part of a young three-quarter line with players not much more experienced than him. He knows that one of the factors that should enable him to cope is that – by the standards of English wingers – he is a big, strapping lad. Not quite in the Manu Vatuvei or Israel Folau mould perhaps, to name two giants on the Test scene, but tall and strong enough to hold his own under the high kicks that can make a wingman's life a misery.

Provided he comes though that contest unscathed, he can expect to be in demand at England's post-match celebrations, because Hall has another string to his bow.

The sax might be gathering dust, but he could be tinkling the ivories if there is a piano to hand.

"I wouldn't call myself a pianist," he says, "but I can play a few songs."

His party-piece? "Imagine – that always gets everyone singing."

Not a bad soundtrack for a player who scarcely dreamed a couple of years ago that his playing career could progress to where it is today.