SPORTSMEN rarely come as loquacious or as eloquent as Dwain Chambers so it came as something of a surprise to see rugby league's most controversial convert lost for words at the press conference to unveil him as a trialist with Castleford Tigers.

The question from a member of the small army of journalists, photographers and TV cameramen that had assembled at The Jungle did not concern his desire to run for Great Britain in the Olympic Games or his 'crime' of using performing-enhancing drugs five years ago.

Chambers had earlier dealt with both topics openly and candidly but this question left him looking like Mike Gatting in the moments after Shane Warne had tossed him that legendary leg-break and only the intervention of his lawyer broke the silence.

Four weeks later, as he stands on the verge of his league debut, will Chambers be able to play at the same question with a straight bat? Let's see...

So, Dwain, how many players are there in a rugby league team?

"Thirteen on the field and four on the bench! I'm getting it now," he laughs, sitting back in the shelter of the groundsman's office at Wheldon Road following a long and intensive training session with Castleford's first team squad.

He is slightly out of breath and covered in mud from repeated collisions with tackle bags but it is apparent that all seems well in 'Dwain's World', a world which could be about to spin on an altogether different axis from Sunday.

Chambers's month-long trial with the Super League strugglers ends in two days' time when he will see competitive action, allbeit in a reserve team friendly against National League Two club York City Knights, for the first time.

It could be a make or break day for Chambers, and not just for his body, which many people still believe will not prove robust enough to cope with the force of the collisions involved in modern-day rugby league.

A bumper crowd is expected to witness Chambers become the fastest man ever to play the sport he hopes will give him an opportunity to start afresh and put behind him his standing as a track-and-field pariah following his two-year ban from athletics for using the designer steroid THG in 2003.

Chambers's goal is to convince Castleford that he has what it takes to set Super League alight and win an offer of a two- or three-year contract, an outcome which would finally persuade him to abandon his dream of running in Beijing this summer.

The romance of the Olympics is far removed from the reality of rugby league but Chambers's commitment to the latter has been, and remains all-consuming.

"If I try something I give it 110 per cent and I go into it to win," he says. "If it was just a stunt I wouldn't have prepared myself as well as a I have and I'd be going into Sunday's match knowing I was going to get hurt.

"I might still get hurt but if I do it won't be because of anything I haven't done in the last four weeks."

Although it has been something of a whirlwind trial, Chambers has had to be eased into a sport he admits he knew nothing about until a chance conversation with former Wigan and Great Britain winger Martin Offiah last autumn.

"I first met Martin through a mutual friend, Simon Dent, towards the end of last year. We sat down talking and I told him I'd been trying to get into American Football," explains Chambers.

"He asked if I'd considered rugby league and my first reaction was 'Whoa! That game's too rough, the players are always covered in blood, it's not my kind of sport.'

"I left it at that until a few months later the chance to have a trial at Castleford came along and it sort of felt like I was fated to play rugby league. After that it all mushroomed and here I am."

Much of the last month has involved explanations of the tactics and rules involved in rugby league but two weeks ago Chambers was given his first taste of the sport's physical nature in a full contact training session with the reserves.

"It was going all right until I went into one tackle and hit someone's boot with my face," he says. "Boy it hurt. I thought I'd broken my nose.

"I remember as a little kid walking into a lamp post and getting the same feeling."

Week Three of his trial proved to be the most demanding for Chambers – "I woke up aching like hell and was stiff for about three days" – but the experience merely served to fuel his desire to prove himself in the heat of battle.

"I believe I will play well. I don't feel scared by it at all," he insists convincingly. "When I run out of the tunnel on Sunday there are going to be a few nerves but once I get my first pass and make my first tackle things will settle down and I'll be fine.

"I haven't come this far to fail. If I had come into this with the wrong attitude I would have been gone a long time ago, especially after I banged my nose.

"It would have been 'I don't need this' and I'd have been away. Where would I go? I'd be back home with my family but just sitting there with the people you love isn't going to earn you a living.

"Everyone tells me I'm too old but 30 is the new 20. Yes, I am 30 but I'm not a beaten up 30. My body is fresh, my mind is fresh and I'm excited by the challenge."

It is almost two years since Chambers was ordered to pay back the prize-money he won during the period he was using steroids and the weight of that £180,000 debt clearly hangs heavily on a man with a wife and young child to support.

He has been living in a hotel at Glasshoughton but has seen enough of Yorkshire to be excited by the prospect of moving his family up from London and starting life anew.

"I need to provide for my family and as a sportsman I need to fit in. Rugby league is a sport which allows me to run, have fun and flourish," he says. "It's been hard being away from my family but I take heart from the fact that I'm up here for the right reasons.

"As well as trying to earn a contract to support my family, I'm re-establishing myself as an individual. Being in Castleford has shown that despite my mistakes I can still pick my life back up again and move forward, and that people are prepared to forgive and forget.

"If I can be as good as Martin Offiah then it's a massive achievement."

If he can be as good as Offiah, the people of Castleford would forgive him absolutely anything.

Click here to download the interview to your iPod.

Our full SportsTalk programmes »