The blond who really needs to have more fun

Life is no longer all glamour for Balshaw. Hugh Godwin meets a man searching for form

When Clive Woodward settles into his chair at the Portmarnock Hotel on Tuesday morning to announce his team for the Grand Slam date against Ireland in Dublin a few miles down the road, the first words to escape his lips will define England's game plan. The choice between Matt Perry and Iain Balshaw at full-back is not a new one but, as they like to say in that other code, the goalposts have been shifted.

Balshaw made a stellar contribution to England's rollocking Six Nations' campaign last spring, when Woodward's side hammered the living daylights out of Wales, Italy, Scotland and France, but his form has since taken a downturn of bungee-jump proportions. A faltering start to the season with Bath, as they sank to the bottom of the Zurich Premiership, followed on from a Lions tour to Australia that he would rather not talk about any more, thank you very much. Everyone from Brisbane to Bristol has been picking 4,000 holes in the kid from Blackburn, Lancashire. And that includes Balshaw himself.

"I think I've stepped back a bit," he said before yesterday's match against Sale, "because my confidence dropped. I wouldn't say I have been playing badly, but I have not been the highlight of the game or whatever, I have just been trying to do the basics right. I need to up my performances to where I left off with England. I hope I can do that." The next words were "and soon". With only three Monday sessions together before gathering for a preparatory week in Ireland, Woodward's squad have had few opportunities to re-establish the previously smooth lines of communication.

The signs against Swansea last week, when Bath made it two wins out of two in the Heineken Cup after the severe jolt of four Premiership defeats, were that Balshaw was rediscovering the instinctive elan that made Twickenham his playground in the opening months of 2001. His five tries against the Italians, Scots and French were the stuff of dreams. In Balshaw, it seemed, Woodward and his dedicated backs coach, Brian Ashton, had made flesh their drawing-board plottings of the truly expansive game.

Ashton had been saying that Balshaw could do it, from a long way back. The pair were once master and pupil at Stonyhurst College, from where Balshaw was capped alongside Jonny Wilkinson on the all-conquering England schools tour to Australia in 1997. Balshaw scored his first Premiership try for Bath in April 1998, on the eve of his 19th birthday. Twenty-eight more tries in the Premiership followed in the next two seasons but Perry was still first choice against Australia and South Africa in last year's pre-Christmas internationals. Balshaw upstaged his club-mate from the bench, however, putting in the sudden-death chip-kick for Dan Luger's winning try against the Wallabies. Woodward – although in no way diminished in his faith in Perry – gave in to his urge to pick Balshaw for the Six Nations.

Ashton was at Bath last Wednesday, supervising a backs session at his old club, and for once he could not be drawn on the subject of his favourite son. The lips stay sealed when an England team announcement is nigh. But Woodward's last public words on the subject a month ago, when he named the initial 30-man squad, seemed unequivocal. "I've no fears about Iain Balshaw," he said then. "Form comes and goes, class lasts for ever. A few months ago, against France, he was the outstanding player. At times things don't go according to plan on the pitch but I happen to believe this guy is a class player."

Nevertheless, the manager was savvy enough to allow himself the traditional opt-out clause that Balshaw must get into the team on merit. It is, as Woodward might say himself, a "big call". Perry's solidity at the back might be preferred in the face of Irish fire, while Jason Robinson could be considered anywhere in the back three. As could Balshaw, for that matter. Two out-and-out wings – Luger and Ben Cohen – plus Austin Healey complete a competitive field.

Balshaw has eschewed the Tintin quiff in favour of a close crop. A reporter acerbically quipped that it was because there was not enough hair in the world to fit around the young man's head. Arrogant, self-confident or just candid?

Certainly Balshaw's long-striding step lost its bounce Down Under in the summer when, despite two tries in the opening tour match against Western Australia, he rapidly got the message that Perry was ahead of him in Graham Henry's pecking order. Balshaw's critics have since routinely overlooked that he was troubled by a shoulder injury. But he admitted at the time that he felt misused by the Lions, sent into the heavy midfield traffic when the wide open spaces of the broken field are his natural environment.

If Balshaw harbours a lingering regret that he did not react to the challenge more positively, he would rather not say. And he is probably right. One senses he is suffering from a little too much introspection. The lower lip curls nervously, the sentences are fractured. "I play winger for Bath," he said, "and obviously I'd like to play full-back, because that's where my England place is, or I think could play for England. Unfortunately – well, fortunately and unfortunately – we have Pezza [Perry] at Bath as well. It's difficult but I've just got to accept it, and I don't think the England coaches read too much into it."

High time, perhaps, for Balshaw to remind himself how he brought Twickenham to its feet with that glorious 75-metre try against Italy. But will Woodward see it that way, and can England afford to coax Balshaw on the path to redemption with the Grand Slam at hand?

"Clive, Brian and Andy Robinson [England's forwards coach] have all spoken to me," Balshaw said. "Not nursed me, but they've been understanding as to what happened [with the Lions]. I thoroughly enjoy the way the England management want us to play the game. Just because we've had a break from each other doesn't mean we can't play as we did last season."