Andy Farrell was a shy kid. It feels a bit mad to think of him like that now, all these years on, all those teams and trials and dressing-room speeches later. Man of Steel (twice). Challenge Cups and Grand Slams and Lions tours. Mr Hurt Arena himself. Shy? Come on.

But it’s true. He tells a story of his first time going to a Wigan under-10 rugby league camp. All his friends played football and he didn’t want to spend a week where he wouldn’t know anybody. He really, really didn’t want to go and had to be cattle-prodded there by his parents. He even wore a football jersey on his first day, his own small act of protest.

“That sticks in my mind hugely,” he says. “My kids now, they’re all different. But just say my youngest, he goes away on holiday down the country to Cork or wherever with friends’ families the whole time. Not a bother on him at all.

“Whereas I remember going on holiday in a campervan with my friend’s grandfather, to Blackpool. I didn’t have a mobile phone obviously because I was only a kid. But I remember we had to get in touch with my parents to come and pick me up because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have a sleepover at somebody else’s house because I just wanted to be home the whole time.

“I was just that way inclined. I was a homeboy. Fast forward to where we are now, I suppose there’s a nice theme there of putting yourself out of your comfort zone and forcing yourself to do these type of things more and more.”

That Wigan camp when he was nine is a small story in Farrell’s new memoir, The Only Way I Know. But even as you’re reading it, it feels like a key moment. Not just because it was his first time playing rugby league – he had no way of knowing he’d become one of the greats of the sport.