IT was around 6.30 when Lawrence Dallaglio left the Twickenham dressing room for the last time as a player. Out in the early evening light, hundreds of Wasps fans waited. "Lawrence, Lawrence," they chanted as the familiar face came towards them. The taller amongst them patted the back of his neck, others tugged at his sleeve and a man, standing on nearby steps, shouted, "Dallaglio, you're a God."

He chatted amiably as he walked, smiled his boyish smile and signed the autographs. And here, at the headquarters of English rugby, he signed off the most extraordinary career. Eleven finals he played for Wasps, ten of them he won. In nine of the victories, he captained the side but he led the team in every match.

Someone asked if yesterday's victory wasn't the perfect end his playing career. "It's the only way to finish," he replied. He has always had that sense of entitlement: if we're in the final, we're there to win and if we don't I want to know why. If you were a Leicester fan, a Tiger to your core, you couldn't but hate this man.

As Dallaglio stood in the tunnel before the game, a tear trickled down his cheek. With him, the tears were never extra. Martin Johnson tells the story of seeing rivulets gush down Dallaglio's face before the 2003 semi-final against France in Sydney and knowing England would be alright.

The greatest legacy may be the winner's mentality but perhaps his trademark was the emotion that he brought to the game. From him, you didn't get "Lawrence, the rugby player," You got every fibre of his physical and spiritual being. If it was just the footballer, he wouldn't have lasted all these years and in recent times the footballer might not have made the Wasps's second team.

Yet there he was yesterday, all heart and soul, playing his best match of the season. There were even moments when he turned the clock back and reminded us of how great he once was. The little pick up and pass to Simon Shaw began the sequence that ended with Josh Lewsey streaking through the Leicester and it reminded us of the skinny 21-year-old who played his part in England winning the inaugural World Cup in sevens' rugby.

In all the talk about his leadership and his aura, we forget just how good a player he has been. For the important games, he was always present. Yesterday was no different. Early in the second half, Alesana Tuilagi counterattacked from just inside his own half. In front of him stood Dallaglio and one expected the Pacific Islander to try to bash straight past the old warrior. Dallaglio stood his ground and then buried his man.

He likes to remind those who don't know their statistics that this season, he's played the full eighty minutes more often than not and yesterday, the game had entered the last ten minutes when Wasps replaced him. He trooped away, as 65,000 followers stood and applauded. The Wasps' fans sung, "Lawrence Dallaglio, Lawrence Dallaglio," but the greatest tribute came from the thousands of Leicester fans who stayed rooted to their seats, refusing to genuflect before the big man.

Why should they? They had seen enough too much of that. And how can you cheer for the one who breaks your heart? "I am sure most people at Leicester will be glad to see the back of me," he said after the game. You can sing that, Lawrence.

What will stick in the craw of Leicester fans is the way Dallaglio used the fuss about Johnson's last game in the 2005 Premiership final to galvanise his men and turn the emotional tide against Leicester. "They think we're here to make up the numbers, to be bit players in the farewell party for Martin Johnson and Neil Back. Well, we ain't doing that." And two of Leicester's greatest players left the theatre through a side door.

When the emotional tables were turned for this year's final and all the fuss was about Dallaglio, you sensed Leicester's hunger to even an old score. What happens? During a first half they controlled, Wasps scored the points that took them clear. They were the team that played with the greater desire and in its emotional intensity, the first half performance was typically that of a team inspired by Dallaglio.

"Three years ago, I made it all about Martin's last game, but today wasn't about me," he said in that innocent way of his. He always been able to see the game from his team's point of view.

He always been a master at that, the master psychologist with a gift for getting the team's mindset where it needs to be. It's one of the things Wasps will miss next season but he leaves at the right time and not just because he exits with the scent of victory in his nostrils. "The young doth rise/When the old doth fall," wrote William Shakespeare and Dallaglio couldn't have lived much longer in the company of young Tom Rees and James Haskell.

Haskell did many fine things yesterday although he was desperately slow to react when Harry Ellis scampered through for Leicester's second try. Dallaglio, the old boys will be saying, didn't miss tackles like that.

If there is another legacy that he leaves, it is his respect for the game's oldest values.. He has always wanted to have an after-match drink with his opponents and it was no surprise to see Martin Corry and he embrace at the end of yesterday's game. They've had so many battles but none more fun than the beer-fuelled games of pool they played on the night England beat Wales in the 2003 World Cup.

One hopes Corry won that night because he's had more than his share of losses to Dallaglio. Winning never blinded him. After receiving the Cup yesterday, he dedicated the victory to the former England full-back and multiple sclerosis sufferer Alastair Hignell who made his last rugby commentary for BBC radio yesterday.

"I've known him a long time," Dallaglio said of Hignell. "Life is about guts and character and Alastair's shown those qualities." It was an observation that the Wasps skipper was in a good position to make.