Dean Richards is eating a pulled pork stottie – a Geordie bread roll – and discussing the absurdity of the modern world. “It’s irresponsible now as a parent if you allow your child to climb a tree. I don’t quite get that.” Newcastle’s director of rugby pauses for another reflective mouthful. “A lot of the kids coming through academies are unlike the players who were around in the late 80s and 90s. They’ve never worked and they don’t understand what goes on in the bigger world.”

There is endless opencast wisdom to be mined if you select the right subject. Richards has spent 14 years as a high‑profile director of rugby, longer than anyone else; it is 30 years since he won his first England cap and almost 35 years since he first played for Leicester. No one has had a more varied rugby odyssey – from Hinckley policeman to Newcastle, from British Lion to Bloodgate – or changed so relatively little en route. There is old school and then there is Deano, the socks-down legend who mostly wrote the syllabus.

This is the man who, according to his old mate Jason Leonard, once whacked a startled Ross Kemp – aka Grant Mitchell from EastEnders – before delivering the immortal line: “Take that. Your brother’s not with you now.” Brian Moore recalls he and Richards stepping off the plane in Australia before the 1987 Rugby World Cup wearing, respectively, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan face masks.

As an 18-year-old, fearful of his looming exam results – “I decided I’d sooner be as far away from my parents as I possibly could” – he headed to Roanne in France, where he played local rugby and earned a living by cleaning buses and loading engines in a car factory. “I’ve never shied away from doing that sort of thing. It’s never bothered me in the least.”

Three decades on, before Sunday’s reunion with his former club, Leicester, today’s up-and-comers may not be aware what a fine player Richards was; one step ahead of the game whether it be rugby or poker, an idiosyncratic No8 who played 314 games for the Tigers, 48 Tests for England and six more for the Lions. It was a depressing time for everyone when the Bloodgate furore of 2009 chipped the varnish from his reputation. “Is it easy to leave in the past? Not really, because you constantly get reminded of it,” he says. “You remind yourself of it quite often; it’ll never happen again.”

Richards won back-to-back Heineken Cups as coach of Leicester Tigers. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

It is water under the Tyne bridge now; the blood capsules purchased from a Clapham Junction joke shop, the horribly messy fallout, the draconian three-year suspension. On a sunny midweek lunchtime at Kingston Park, even so, Richards still feels slightly bruised. “Bloodgate’s a long time ago but I felt a little bit aggrieved because my intentions at the time were not what was portrayed. I’ve never said why things happened and I probably never will do, but it was a huge, huge mistake. You can dwell on it and reflect on it or you can put it behind you.”

Which is partly why the 53-year-old is still fighting the Premiership fight, in between catching fish and enjoying Northumberland country life. He will tell you the job of director of rugby has never been more demanding – “You’re far more accountable than ever before; it’s more time-consuming” – yet admits to an ongoing oval-ball addiction. “I just love the game. If I was driving down the road and saw a game of rugby happening on the right-hand side I’d pull over and watch it. I don’t think many other people do that.”

It makes Richards an authority on most aspects of the English game; he particularly laments the adverse impact of leagues on lower-level clubs. “People started paying players when there was no need to,” he says. “I blame the Rugby Football Union for not taking a [stronger] stance earlier on.” He is equally convinced the RFU should do more to help head coaches climb the pyramid – “I don’t see a pathway for them” – and re-examine how young players are reared. “I’ve always been a firm believer in promotion and relegation, but in the last two years I’ve gone more and more against it. You can’t expand players’ skill levels because you’re constantly looking at other things.”

Richards’s own England coaching ambitions are long gone, even though his eye for a player remains famously sharp. “I never wanted it. When I was at Quins there was a clause in my contract whereby if England came knocking they would have to pay the club an undisclosed fee,” he says. “Mark Evans rang one day and said: ‘England have been in touch, are you interested?’ I said no. It was round about the time Martin Johnson got the job. That’s not to say I was being courted, but they did show an interest. I wouldn’t even entertain it these days. It takes a special person to want to do the England job and you have to love the media, which isn’t my forte. It’s not as a result of what happened when I was at Quins or Leicester. It’s just who I am.”

Nor does he have any wish to return to Leicester, having gone from king of Welford Road – “Deano! Deano!” - to being jettisoned in 2004 after a 23-year association. “It was always going to end that way. There were a lot of egos within the side, and on the board as well. When England won the World Cup their expectations became very different.”

Richards wanted everyone to refocus on Leicester rather than England’s glory: “Before one game there was a dinner organised where the World Cup was going to be. I said I wanted the players to go home early. Certain members of the board didn’t like that. In my final year my budget was also being cut. I was told I was being given one physio and one conditioner. It was very odd, but it’s all in the past now. You move on in life, don’t you? I’ve still got friends and relations in Leicestershire but I haven’t lived there for 12 years.”

His priority now is his present employers – “I’d love Newcastle Falcons to get up that table and win the title” – and easing the frustration of the 53‑point towelling in Bath last Saturday. Whatever happens, Richards will remain stubbornly loyal to those who retain faith in him and, above all, to the game of rugby. “I think it’s a brilliant sport. I always have done and, until somebody changes it dramatically, it always will be. You play for enjoyment; lose that and you may as well not go on the field. Society has changed massively but there still needs to be an element of fun.”

There has always been more to Deano than he likes to let on.