My Life in Rugby: Brett Deacon – former Leicester and Gloucester back-row

I had never played second row in my career and on my Premiership debut I was thrown in at the deep end.
Luckily it was alongside my brother Louis, which was really nice. Every time I played with him it was one of the proudest moments.
The opportunity came during the 2003 World Cup with all those England lads away.
It looked like it would come two years earlier when I was 19 after I had spent three months training in South Africa with the Natal Sharks academy.
I came back from that trip having worked extremely hard but immediately picked up a stress injury in the pelvis from over-training.
I was out for 18 months and so didn’t make my debut until 2003.
Dean Richards at the time showed a lot of faith in me because he could have just said, ‘you’re injured all the time – we aren’t going to renew your contract’.
The year 2007 when we had the chance to win the treble but just came short in the European Cup is probably the highlight of my career. In was incredible to be part of that squad.
I have never been in a team thinking we were untouchable – as soon as you do that you become complacent – and there was no chance of that at Leicester.
The pack was full of legends back then, although a lot of them didn’t encourage you too much verbally – just in the way they played. Richard Cockerill and Graham Rowntree were the guys who gave you advice, while Martin Johnson and Neil Back just led by example.
I took a lot of flak for moving to Gloucester in 2010, being a Leicester lad. I was never first choice at Leicester so I made the decision to go elsewhere.
The first year was really enjoyable getting to the playoff semi-finals – especially having struggled at the start of the season and with people writing us off.
But I soon came back to Leicester. Richard Cockerill rang me and asked if I would consider it.
It was a great decision and everything was going well until last May. I was experiencing real shortness of breath when I was training. I played in my brother’s testimonial game and I was so tired I could hardly run and I was thinking, ‘what’s wrong with me?’
I went to see the doctor thinking I may have a chest infection but scans revealed I had multiple blood clots. They said if I hadn’t found this early there was a real risk of heart attacks. Then I was diagnosed with Lupus.
There was a six-month period when I was able to train without the contact stuff but eventually I was told to retire. It was hard, but I had six months of ‘maybe’ so I could get my head around it.
Soon after Richard Cockerill said, ‘we want to keep you around at the club and you can instil your values in this place’.
The club supported me through those six months and now, as the academy forwards coach, I can repay that and work hard for them.