They say props peak in their late 20s and early 30s but that was not the case with me.
I’m immensely proud of my 43 caps for Scotland but my international career ended when I was only 26.
It’s a strange one because I’m still playing at Bristol but know my international career is over. I’ll never play for Scotland again, it’s just one of those things.
Making my debut in 2002 against Romania was one of the proudest moments of my life. We had a great pack that day. Apart from me who was making my debut everyone around me had about 40 caps.
And we won the game handsomely so it was a pretty great introduction to international rugby.
But my second cap is a real highlight, it came a week later against South Africa as part of the autumn international series.
Romania had been a warm-up, this was the big test and we managed to beat them. It was a fairly typical Scottish victory against the Southern Hemisphere as it has become recently.
The weather certainly played its part but we were well worth the win and it ended up being fairly comfortable at 21-6.
To beat a Southern Hemisphere side is always special and to do it at Murrayfield in only my second cap is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
And to be involved in the 2003 World Cup in Australia was amazing. The buzz is everywhere, it’s the best of the best and the reason that you play the game so I’m so pleased that I had a chance to be involved.
Of course we’d have liked to have gone a bit further in the tournament but Australia were a strong side and they nearly won the whole thing so I can’t be too disappointed with our quarter-final defeat.
I was lucky to be involved right the way through the age-groups with Scotland, that was a lot of fun but also the first time that I realised I made be able to make a career out of it.
I was signed by Edinburgh and spent a lot of my career playing my club rugby in Scotland but I was also was fortunate to play in different European leagues.
I had an early spell with Quins which taught me a lot, I was only there for a season before the Borders side was set-up but it was a great experience.
Guys like Jason Leonard and Keith Wood were there and I played Heineken Cup so it was pretty fantastic.
The time with the Borders was great, we had a lot of the Scotland guys like Gregor Townsend in the side and they were my heroes so I wanted to play.
But we didn’t really get a fair crack as a club, we were always the third choice for the SRU and eventually it came to an end which was a shame.
We all bought into the idea that it was our club and would be there forever but when it came to an end I got to go to Wales and play with Llanelli Scarlets.
They love their rugby over there and the locals were never shy to let you know how you’d played on the weekend but I really enjoyed it.
My travelling did not stop there as I also got to play for two seasons with Montpellier in France and even experimented with playing hooker as well over there which was certainly an eye-opener.
I came back to Worcester Warriors after that and we got promoted back to the Premiership in my first season, my only silverware of my career and now I’m hoping to help Bristol do the same this year.