Hill 'ready' to answer call of duty

Richard Hill lies flat on his stomach then, at a given signal, leaps to his feet and sprints the length of the field and back. A pause for breath, a mock-grapple for the ball, then another sprint.

Richard Hill lies flat on his stomach then, at a given signal, leaps to his feet and sprints the length of the field and back. A pause for breath, a mock-grapple for the ball, then another sprint.

On another day, it might be a common-or-garden fitness session. Ten days before the Lions squad to tour New Zea-land is named, and for arguably the most talented English back-row of his generation, it is anything but. "If I keep ticking the boxes I can move on to the next level," says Hill. "It's not just down to me, but I'm keen to get back on the pitch."

The when and where are details Hill is loath to go into. The theme throughout the 31-year-old's six-month recovery from a reconstruction of his left knee has been not to rush it, not to do something which feels great at one moment but might mean disaster the next. He is not so much a caged Lion as a cagey one. "My return is imminent," he said, and it may be with Saracens' 2nd XV tomorrow at Gloucester, or on the bench for the first team at Wasps in the Zurich Premiership next Sunday. If not, there are two more Premiership fixtures, against Leicester and Gloucester, plus any play-offs which may transpire.

Hill does not want to put pressure on himself, or Saracens' management, or on Sir Clive Woodward, the Lions head coach. He does, however, believe he will be ready for New Zealand. "The Lions squad is announced on 11 April," Hill said. "Then there's - what? - seven, seven-and-a- half weeks before the first game? Most people would accept that's a reasonable time to get yourself fit."

The person who counts is Woodward, who in seven years in charge of England never once omitted Hill voluntarily. When Hill tore a hamstring in the first week of the 2003 World Cup, Woodward waited patiently until the semi-final for it to heal. Now Hill is up and running again, it seems inconceivable his old boss will leave him at home. But these are trying times. A whole stampede of potential Lions has been racing to be fit - from Wales's Colin Charvis and Gordon D'Arcy of Ireland to Hill's fellow World Cup winners Jason Robinson, Jonny Wilkinson, Mike Tindall, Will Greenwood and Phil Vickery.

On Thursday, Hill spent over an hour in his first "full-on" session of rucking and mauling, line-outs and contact, with "anything and everything" allowed. He was pleased to discover no adverse reaction on Friday morning, when he trained one-to-one with Saracens' conditioning coach, Peter Atkinson. "We'll reassess on Monday," said Hill, who won the last of his 71 England caps in Australia last summer.

His chances of touring with Woodward's big cats were first thrown into doubt when he attempted to chase down Mike Catt at London Irish in October. "Catty stepped right, and I went with him. Then he stepped left, and my body went with him but my knee didn't. I heard a pop, though I soon started to wonder whether I'd made that noise up in my head."

He hadn't. An exploratory operation became a full repair of the anterior cruciate ligament. "Maybe in a small way it will help my long-term career. Who's to say how long I'd have gone on if I'd carried on doing what I was doing?"

Unexpectedly beneficial or not, after four months Hill was unhappy with his rehabilitation rate. In February he got back on track in the mountains of Vermont in the US, with Bill Knowles, a renowned knee specialist who worked with England's Charlie Hodgson and Austin Healey in 2003. Skiing was off limits, but Hill's training partner was Dave Boston, an American football wide receiver. Boston's motivation was to secure a new multi-million- dollar contract in the NFL. Hill's was the Lions.

"It's obviously been on my mind," he said. "The training has been a lot more successful having there in front of me. I've had a couple of talks [with Woodward] and we've exchanged messages. Of late I've been reliant on people who've watched me train: there's Dave Reddin, who's England's fitness advisor but is also going with the Lions, and Mike Ford, who has seen some of the rugby element I've done at Saracens, and is doing defensive work with the Lions. Hopefully there will have been communication."

No one needs telling what Hill has already contributed to Lions history. He played the first two Tests in South Africa in 1997, which were won, and missed the third, which was lost. In Australia in 2001, the Lions were one Test up and leading 11-6 in the second when Hill was clattered out of the tour by the Wallaby centre Nathan Grey. The Australians went on to take the series. Hill deserves another chance in New Zealand, and surely anyone British or Irish will hope he gets it.