SADLY, playing for England is not like the Jonah Lomu Rugby video game where you can press save, reset it and start again.
However, in real life, you CAN always use the next game to have another go . . . which I fully intend to do.
Once you are out of the international mix, like myself right now, that’s it.
You have to quietly leave the England WhatsApp group and crack on. Sport moves on without you.
I knew as soon as Eddie Jones got in touch a few weeks ago to say he wanted to come round for a chat that I was out of the autumn internationals.
It was obvious he wasn’t coming round to offer me the England captaincy so I didn’t bother getting out my best china.
Contrary to what people might think since I revealed that I paint my toenails, I don’t live in a fantasy land.
And I knew I wasn’t up to scratch. After an operation on my hand it had been a tough start to the season.
It’s the first time I’ve not been selected for an England squad other than through injury. But it happens to everyone at some point in their career.
You either see it as a chance to prove the boss wrong and make sure he picks you again — or fold up and be forgotten. I won’t be doing the latter.
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I love a challenge and I find motivation in any disappointment. A little kick up the arse is good in life.
Sometimes you think you are doing all the right things, but when you come away you realise that maybe you’ve not been doing the things you should have.
In a perverse way, a setback or a disappointment can be just the thing you need to progress.
Even though Eddie was delivering some bad news, it was very humbling that he wanted to see me in person.
A lot has changed since my first call-up back in 2007. I only found out that I had been selected for England when my Wasps team-mate Tom Palmer told me to check my email.
The RFU had sent a message to my dodgy old Hotmail account. You know the one, the address that everyone sets-up when they are a spotty teenager and then forgets about.
I won’t tell you what it was called because it still makes me cringe now.
If it wasn’t for good old Tom, I never would have even turned up to camp.
No one called to tell me I was in the squad. I was just included at the bottom of some email chain.
It shows the mark of Eddie as a bloke that he wanted to deliver the bad news face-to-face. That kind of attention to detail and man-management is why he has got so much out of this England squad since he took over.
We sat down over Eddie’s favourite tipple, green tea, and he was very up front and honest.
Obviously I was gutted, but I had prepared for the worse.
He raised his eyebrows when he saw my giant JCB in the driveway and I had to assure him I wouldn’t chase him down the road in it after he gave me the bad news.
I’d had a bit of a reboot in terms of my approach to my game even before Eddie drove over to my house.
As a player you always want to look back objectively at what you did on the field and be happy, whether you win or lose.
More often than not if you deliver what you set out to achieve during a match, you can come away content. I haven’t always had that this season.
However, I have really enjoyed the last couple of games and now feel like I’m in a position to kick on and try and win back my place in the England squad — and, more importantly, perform for Wasps week in, week out.
You never know when you will get the chance again to play for your country, that’s why it’s always important to play as if it’s going to be your last game.
While I was playing for the Lions and trying to get into that Test team in New Zealand, the rest of the England boys were whitewashing Argentina.
However much you focus on the task in hand, you always have an eye on the competition.
The last guy in that white shirt always has the upper hand and all the back-row boys took their chance in South America.
I’ll be at Twickenham today as a pundit for Sky, but definitely not in an old England tracksuit, doing star jumps, saying ‘put me in’, trying to attract attention when Eddie and the coaches walks past.
I’m not great at watching rugby matches that I could potentially be playing in and I wouldn’t have been at Twickenham if I wasn’t doing the punditry work.
However it’s something I enjoy and watching the game in a professional, objective capacity helps.
It’s always hard seeing the boys walking past when you’re not involved.
When you’re in it, looking out is great. But when you’re outside looking in, you can feel like an extra.
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