First v Italy in Rome on 10 Feb 2008 - England won 23-19

“I wasn’t expecting to be captain.  Earlier that week Vicks (Phil Vickery) had an injury.  On the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday it looked like I was going to be captain.  Then he was good by the end of the week. He was training out there in Rome on the Friday.

“In terms of thinking about being captain, I’d been doing that early in the week and then for the last couple of days I hadn’t considered it in terms of that role.

“On the morning of the Test, Brian Ashton called me to say Phil was out ill and I was captain.  Suddenly, I was captaining England. 

“The team had changed quite a bit, we’d had a lot of bangs and knocks. It was a year after the 2007 World Cup and it often happens, it gets changed around a bit, new caps come in and yes, it was my first game as captain.

“Lesley Vainikola, who’d switched from league the previous year, was on the wing.  Danny Cipriani was playing, it was the second Test for both of them and it was Richard Wigglesworth’s debut.

“Rome is always a place where a game can become scrappy. At half-time we were 20-6 up but it was tighter in the second half.  Thankfully, we had already done the damage.”

Can he recall rallying the team at half time?

"It’s only when you get to the end of your career that I think you realise how quickly the games go by – I played around 450 games, and was captain in more than 200 of them – it means you forget some of those details. Players should always try to hang on to them, to create some great memories, but most of all to enjoy the moment.

“I know that if you just look at the score from that match in Italy it looks tighter than it was necessarily. We certainly made some errors, it happens when new players, young players come in and don’t have the experience.

“Jonny was playing at 10, Toby Flood at 12, but our game lacked fluency and our mistakes gave them opportunities in that second half.

“I gave my first shirt as captain to my former coach Mark Bakewell who coached me at Bath.

Last v Scotland in Murrayfield on 13 March 2010 - a 15-15 draw

England kept the Calcutta Cup.

“That 15 all draw against Scotland at Murrayfield was to be my last for England.  It was a tight game all the way through and there were injuries.  I remember Kelly Brown and Ugo Monye being taken off after a collision.

“I remember a lineout, landing in it.  I knew something wasn’t right but I didn’t know I’d torn a tendon and that it would be my last game for England. I could run and I carried on.

“It was one of those games, tough at the breakdown, greasy, the ball wet, windy - the way the wind goes swirling around Murrayfield.

“Neither side could get away from the other.  We had our chances to put pressure on them, to go for the drop goal to win the game but it didn’t happen and a last minute penalty from Toby Flood dropped just short. We had some new caps - Ben Youngs had his first game. 

“Andy Robinson was in charge of Scotland. Robbo had signed me up to Bath in ‘98 as a young kid and he was the one who handed me my England shirt before the game on my debut. He’s a brilliant coach and I keep in regular contact with him to learn all I can..

“After the game I knew something was wrong with my knee.  I remember sitting on the plane flying back that evening being in a lot of pain.  The next week I went for scans and then I was out.  I didn’t play for a few months and I never played for England again.

“I think I gave my shirt to Jim Hamilton, he wanted it. I think he was raising money for a charity so I gave my last England shirt to Jim.”