I hope you have enjoyed the pictures of Gavin Henson and his family, particularly new arrival Dexter Lloyd, in OK! magazine, as much as I have.

I say this because a fortnight ago I was due to interview Henson for The Times. We had organised it six weeks previously through the very efficient Ospreys press office. The night before, however, an understandably rattled Ospreys pressman rang to say that Gavin had just informed them that the interview was off because Charlotte Church, his partner, had sold the rights to pictures and interview to OK! And OK, OK – you can understand the value of the deal and they are welcome to it, but the exclusivity of it, thus preventing him talking to The Times about rugby? That made no sense. And the last-minute reneging on a long-term arrangement - that made him no friends at Ospreys. Ospreys were as frustrated as hell, neither Charlotte nor OK! would budge, Henson was stuck in the middle. But here’s the good news. I sat down for 75 minutes to interview Shane Williams instead.

And Williams makes it straight into my top five interviews in rugby. I say top five as in those that have made the most impression on me. So, presented here in alphabetical order:

1. Max Brito. The Ivory Coast wing is a quadriplegic having shattered two vertebrae in a rugby World Cup match in 1995. I interviewed him four years later and will never forget it: his positivity, the hopelessness, the fact that rugby had tried to support him but not tried very hard, the fact that his wife had left him. Truly awful. And yet a lovely guy. The last I read of him was an interview in Le Monde two years ago when it became apparent that he was failing in his battle to see anything left remotely bright. “This bloody handicap,” he said. “It's my curse. It kills me and I will never accept it.”

2. Will Carling. I was a student writing for the college newspaper, he was 22, had just been made England captain and his head hadn’t stopped spinning. He invited me into his house and made me a cup of tea. He didn’t seem such a bad bloke then; he’d admit himself that that didn’t necessarily last, though he has certainly now come full circle.

3. Josh Lewsey. Interviewed him with his best mate, Keith Reesby, a captain in the Army Air Corps, who was shot in a helicopter in Iraq. His dog tag, bent in half by a bullet, probably saved his life. Josh is a good, original thinker anyway; the comparisons here of different forms of national service were fascinating.

4. Willie-John McBride. Too often legends don’t match up to your expectations. This guy did not let me down. I went to his house in Ballyclare, he smoked his pipe and talked about the old days. Beautiful.

5. Shane Williams. This hasn’t appeared in the paper yet. I’m giving nothing away. You can buy The Times at 90p a day.

Next week: my favourite interviews in all of sport.

Ronaldo, a nightclub and his new training regime

There is a book to be written on what the high-priests of Brazilian football do once they have either reached 30 or lifted the World Cup. Some let temptation woo them, some just keep on going. In the case of Romario, they try to combine the two, all the way through to his retirement last year aged 42, though one of my favourites is Rivaldo (age: 36) who last year moved to FC Bunyodkor which you will of course know is in Uzbekistan. Rivaldo signed for two years for a reported €10.2 million and then signed an extension to take him on through to 2011.

The one to watch right now is Ronaldo (32) who has familiarised himself with the nightclub route as we know from the incident last year entitled Three Transvestites And The Rio Motel. Ronaldo was back in Brazil recuperating from knee surgery and his comeback is now pending. But he won’t be playing for Flamengo, to whom he pledged his future and with whom he spent four months’ rehabilitation; instead he will play for Corinthians, a signing which had him dubbed in a Rio paper as “a phenomenal traitor”.