Persistence paid off at age of 30
At 30 years of age, I must have been one of the oldest players to have made their England debut when I was first capped by Stuart Lancaster against Scotland in 2012. Having to wait so long, rather than slotting straight in as a 22-year-old, made playing for my country even more special.
Despite being written off by the media, we finished second and were only one win away from the Grand Slam. It was a big thing for me personally to be a part of that fresh and exciting new dawn for England under Stuart Lancaster, albeit briefly.
Graham Rowntree came around to my house to tell me the news that I hadn’t been selected for the next squad. To do that in person was a classy touch and one that I appreciated. If I’m brutally honest with myself I didn’t play well enough to warrant keeping my place. I made quite a few tackles against Scotland but also a few errors and, against Italy, I did okay but Ben Morgan came on and played better.
Like many before me, I’d gone from learning the game at Sedbergh School to playing at the top level. James Simpson-Daniel and Ireland’s Mike McCarthy were contemporaries of mine there and we had a very good team, winning the Rugby World School’s Team of the Year.
After my A-Levels, I worked for an accountancy firm in Leeds during the week and played for Newcastle U21s on a weekend. Eventually I earned a full-time contract, coming through with the likes of Geoff Parling, Mat Tait and Davy Wilson. That group all moved on to pastures new but not before we’d won the 2004 Powergen Cup and qualified for the Heineken Cup quarter-finals.
The early stages of my Premiership career were tough. I had a couple of bad injuries that needed surgery, one to sort out a bulging disc in my neck which took me out for a year and another, shortly after my comeback, to repair a torn bicep.
Once fit, I played a lot of Sevens which was massive in terms of my skill development and game understanding. Playing in front of huge crowds with England helped build up my confidence, too. We won in Hong Kong and playing New Zealand at 7 o’clock at night in the Wellington 7s final was a brilliant experience.
After seven years at Newcastle I decided it was time to take on a fresh challenge at Northampton. Jim Mallinder and Dorian West had coached me with England Saxons and I liked the style and delivery of their coaching. I had a great six years at Saints, and was largely injury free too, winning the LV, Amlin and, of course, the Premiership.
Unlike Newcastle, Northampton is a rugby town through and through and with that comes expectation. I remember a fan coming up to me in the supermarket after a bad result at the weekend and saying, ‘are you sure you should be eating that?’ when he spotted some ice cream in my trolley.
Truthfully, I think with the talent we had in the squad, we should have won more. Several opportunities passed us by, most painfully the 2011 Heineken Cup final. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as miserable after a game as I did then. At least my family were happy, they’d backed me to score the first try at long odds!
After 186 appearances for Saints I signed for Worcester on a two-year deal. Dean Ryan set out his goal about what he wanted to create there and it seemed like a good fit. I think had he stayed there beyond my first season, we’d have moved up the table. But once he left Carl Hogg and then Gary Gold came in and everything was very disjointed.
I decided to call it a day when I realised that I couldn’t play backto-back games in the same way that I used to. My brain would tell me what I needed to do in certain situations but the body was getting too slow to react. To be back at Northampton now in a coaching capacity, is brilliant.