Dawson earns new two-year deal

Recalled England scrum-half Matt Dawson looks set to be offered a new two-year contract by fallen European champions London Wasps.

Dawson joined the Zurich Premiership holders from Northampton last summer and, despite Wasps' patchy form in a season bedevilled by injuries, has quickly established himself at the club.

Bitter disappointment at Wasps' early exit from this year's Heineken Cup, confirmed by defeat at Biarritz on Saturday, is tempered for Dawson by his return to England's Six Nations training squad and by indications that Wasps are keen to secure his services up to the end of the 2006-2007 season.

The 32-year old World Cup winner initially joined Wasps on a one-year deal, but his appetite for the game has clearly been refreshed by his move to the capital and Rob Howley's enforced early retirement with a chronic wrist injury has thrust significant extra responsibility on Dawson's shoulders.

Omitted from England's autumn internationals by head coach Andy Robinson, following his decision to honour a commitment to BBC's A Question Of Sport quiz show when he discovered a clash of dates with a national squad training session, Dawson, 32, has bounced back into England consideration. He arrives at the squad's three-day training camp in Leeds today as favourite to win a Six Nations starting berth.

The camp, a radical affair in which Robinson's squad will begin their Six Nations preparations by training with the Leeds Rhinos rugby league players, is something which both sides hope will become a permanent arrangement.