AT his rugby-playing peak,

Brian ‘Pitbull’ Moore personified the word ‘uncompromising’, a genuine hard man who simply refused to take a backward step, and how Englishmen everywhere loved him for it, although this equally uncompromising memoir suggests the love was not always reciprocated.

In the pantheon of English sport’s hard men – think Terry Butcher or Martin Johnson – Moore deserves an honourable mention at the very least, though by his own admission he was a difficult man to like.

Admire, perhaps, but not embrace like a long-lost brother. Nor, in truth, was he an inspirational leader, but his overtly physical on-field manner ensured the watching millions in England thanked God for the fact that he was on their side.

Moore won 64 England caps in an international career spanning eight years, during which he competed in three World Cups, won the Grand Slam in 1991, 1992 and 1995 and was selected for two British Lions tours. In 1991, he won rugby’s World Player of the Year award.

Beware of the Dog, his second autobiography, reveals jet-black recollections.

Moore was sexually abused at primary school by a male teacher, a sickening revelation, and while he doesn’t dwell on the fact, he concedes that the experience damaged his future relationships. He is twice divorced, but appears to have found a soul mate in his third wife.

While playing for England he was a practising solicitor, a job tailor-made for such an aggressive, uncompromising character. On the field of play he was never gracious in victory, though he would no doubt argue that there was never any need for him to be so.

Some critics have suggested that he has missed an opportunity to apologise for the violence in which he participated. In fairness, professional sport, rugby in particular, is a dog-eat-dog world and there is no requirement for Moore to apologise for anything he did.

He is undoubtedly a complicated man who, though he no longer practises as a lawyer, appears not to have mellowed.

He is a troubled soul who, instead of taking the easy, affable, anecdotal option, has written a genuinely warts-and-all autobiography (and he wrote every word) in the same way as he would have torn into a ruck thirty-odd years ago.

He’s still uncompromising, which explains why Beware of the Dog is such a compelling read.