My Life in Rugby: Kris Chesney – Esher player/coach

No trophies from my 14 seasons with Saracens is a pretty meagre return and it was hugely frustrating because we often had the right ingredients for success.
We got into good positions so many times in competitions like the Amlin Challenge Cup and the Premiership but the one that hurt the most was our Heineken Cup semi-final defeat in 2008.
To this day I believe that Munster flanker Alan Quinlan was at fault for the penalty right at the end but the referee gave it against Richard Hill.
Had it gone our way Glen Jackson would have kicked it from in front of the posts and we’d have been in a European final but in the end we went down 18-16.
I’d personally missed out with a knee injury when we won the Tetley’s Bitter Cup in 1998 which was gutting and when Sarries did finally get their hands on another trophy in 2011 I was playing for Toulon in France, but I felt so pleased for them.
I know Nigel Wray very well and he’s the heart and soul of the club and as soon as they won the Premiership I sent a message to him and guys like Kevin Sorrell to congratulate them.
I came to rugby really late – when I was 18 – and really just to tie me over between cricket seasons.
My friends suggested I join them at Barking and I thought a beer after a game in a clubhouse sounded better than being cold in a park playing football.
I moved on to Saracens in 1995 and I was seen as a back-row but I played a good season on the wing alongside guys like Richard Wallace and Brendon Daniel.
I was blessed with a bit of pace but my career in the backs was soon finished when Mark Evans politely pushed me back into the forwards.
But I did get selected for the England 7s team in 2001 and I got to play in Hong Kong and at the World Cup in Argentina in 2001. That was a great honour for me.
Unfortunately I never got a senior cap and I have to admit I’d have given my right tooth for one. The dream of turning out for England is why you play the game but it wasn’t as if the guys in front of me in the back five were a bunch of jokers. When I was in my prime there was also Martin Johnson, Hilly, Danny Grewcock – the toughest opponent I faced – and Lawrence Dallaglio.
But I did get to go on a Barbarians tour in 2005 and 2008 and I got to run out at Twickenham and sing the national anthem which was a special moment.
When I left Saracens to go to France in 2009 I’d played 338 games for them and being lucky with injuries certainly helped me reach that total.
Life at Toulon was a dream. I lived by the beach and we were more a Barbarians squad with people like Bakkies Botha, Simon Shaw and Jonny Wilkinson.
Jonny once destroyed me in a Falcons-Sarries match but if anyone asks me, I still maintain that I got hit by their two second rows before he got to me!
Now I’m back in England and settling into life in the real world as an insurance broker.
But I have a two-year deal with Esher in National One and I do a bit of coaching as well with Ollie Smith. Esher are hungry and I want to help them in any way I can.