Back in September when Afolabi Fasogbon gave Ellis Genge a departing wave following their scrum battle, it was hard not to smile. Rugby today is crying out for personalities and here was a moment of genuinely enjoyable bravado from a 20-year-old. The England loosehead, not exactly shy at a similar age, seemed to love it.

Sure, Fasogbon might have struggled a little against Genge’s replacement, Jake Woolmore, as he will continue to at times during his prolonged scrummaging apprenticeship. But it was heartening to see Fasogbon follow up the Genge exchange during Gloucester’s recent win against Northampton by appearing to tell Tom West, a veteran with close to 100 top-flight games under his belt, to be quiet. Speaking to Telegraph Sport, Fasogbon wants to explain what happened.

“It’s weird, the Tom West one. I’ve watched it back and can see why people thought it was a wave, but it wasn’t directed at him, it was more the fact that everyone was moaning after the ref’s decision regardless of whether it was for them or against them. The referee is never going to change his decision, but that final penalty I thought was clear as day, and they were still complaining. So, not in a malicious way, it was more like, ‘Stop talking, stop complaining, get on with it.’”

Perhaps age will temper those reactions but right now, in the moment, Fasogbon feeds off the adrenalin. “When you’re on that rugby field, it’s a war out there. It’s high arousal and sometimes it is just like my body takes over.”

Still, how can you not enjoy that level of confidence? It is a quality that England’s latest crop of Under-20 world champions appear to have in abundance after their success last summer, with Henry Pollock thriving for Northampton and Asher Opoku-Fordjour, Fasogbon’s fellow U20s prop, becoming the first from the squad to win a senior cap this autumn.

”[That confidence] is a testimony to that Under-20s group we had,” Fasogbon explains. “Everybody worked hard. That win in the final, it was a healthy environment where we constantly pushed each other to get better, we all got on whether on or off the pitch. And that confidence has just rolled on. Not necessarily being afraid to make mistakes, and wanting to get better. We had a whole summer of that and could then have a good pre-season before hopefully trying to show it on the bigger stage.”

Fasogbon and Opoku-Fordjour are close, regularly texting each week and occasionally speaking on FaceTime before games, giving each other feedback about their respective opponents when possible.

“He has worked hard and he deserves it, I’m proud of him,” Fasogbon says about Opoku-Fordjour’s senior debut. “It’s something really cool to see. I remember where I was watching his debut and it has pushed me more, to work harder to get to where he is. It was similar in Under-20s camp. We pushed each other at every scrum, every scrum we were going at each other. I don’t think I could pick out a single scrum where either of us held off, we were always going at each other, trying to make each other better.”

A fun twist is that Gloucester face Sale Sharks on Jan 4, potentially pitting England’s two brightest front-row prospects against each other. “We’ll probably still text each other that week but not rugby related, because I won’t be telling him what we’re previewing for him, or them for me!”

In terms of a scrummaging education, Gloucester feels like a good place to be. Fasogbon arrived there following the collapse of London Irish, having been part of the Exiles catchment area coming through school. The middle of three brothers, his first love was basketball, shifting between point guard, centre and power forward while following the Toronto Raptors in the NBA. Only one other pupil at his school, St Mary’s and St John’s CE in Hendon, played rugby. They suggested Fasogbon should come along to Saracens Amateurs to give it a go. That panned out rather well, with Fasogbon then joining The Bishop Wand School in Sunbury, close to Irish’s Hazelwood base. His parents, Bobby and Olubunmi, moved here from Nigeria and are still in Hendon, with another sport uniting the five of them together. “We’re a Manchester United family,” he adds.

At Kingsholm, his mentors include Trevor Woodman, the England World Cup winner. In the recent Unbreakable documentary covering the 2003 squad’s post-rugby struggles there is a clip of Woodman, forced to retire not long after 2003, in his role as Gloucester’s scrum coach putting Fasogbon through some drills.

“He’s part of the reason why I chose to come to this great club,” Fasogbon adds. “He knows his stuff, and he genuinely cares about my development. Off the pitch he is a good laugh, good to talk to, but when it comes to business he is always pushing me to be my best on and off the field.”

There are also no other tightheads in the league quite like Gloucester’s Kirill Gotovtsev, the 37-year-old Russian who remains in peak physical condition and with a background in wrestling and bobsleigh. “I never thought I’d meet a bobsledder let alone play with one,” Fasogbon laughs. “Genuinely I have learnt so much from him. The way he goes about his business at that age, he’s really professional. He is not prone to injury. I can learn a lot, especially from his wrestling background, techniques in certain areas. Even today in one-on-ones, he showed me a weird technique which just makes things a whole lot easier to what I was doing before. He’s a great role model.”

Fasogbon is tall for a prop at 6ft 4in, and used Exeter’s Ehren Painter, who is the same height, as a model for his own technique last season. Whatever your height, the aim remains the same: “Being low and square, and pushing hard.”

Many more scrummaging wars lie ahead of him. You fancy Fasogbon to be the victor more often than not.