My Life in Rugby: Dan Scarbrough – former England, Leeds, Saracens and Racing Metro full-back

I got my first cap in a World Cup warm-up game against Wales in 2003 knowing that I had one shot to be on the plane for Australia.
Iain Balshaw had been injured and the selectors were looking at me or him to go in that final spot.
It was a lot of pressure for my first game and I didn’t play as well as I would have liked.
In the end he got the nod and is a World Cup winner and I stayed home. But looking back, I know I did absolutely everything I could to be there and it just wasn’t to be.
That was my first taste of international rugby, but I’d been involved with England A for the year before.
What was disappointing was that after getting that opportunity, even though I didn’t go to the World Cup, I thought I’d get a chance to establish myself afterwards.
Instead I had to have my shoulder reconstructed which meant I missed a lot of the next season and in the end I didn’t get the chance to play for England again until 2007.
I’d come through the ranks in quite a roundabout way. I started out at Bradford and played there before heading to Manchester to study.
I came back to play for Wakefield and did pretty well in National One before moving to Leeds the season they got promoted to the Premiership.
It was only when I got to Leeds that I thought rugby would be my career and more than just a hobby.
I had three great years there and really enjoyed it, and it was while I was with them that I got my first chance with England.
I decided to try something different, though, in 2004 when I moved to Saracens but unfortunately I got injured in my fourth or fifth game and missed most of the season.
It was frustrating because I wanted to prove myself to the fans at a new club and couldn’t.
I did manage to get back to fitness and started scoring tries and got my second cap on the summer tour to South Africa in 2007 before the World Cup.
It was a completely different experience for me, I was so much more relaxed and felt I had a really good game.
I managed to get myself a try and we were winning after 60 minutes, which was pretty good given that no one had given us a hope.
They then had to pick the World Cup squad and from everything I had heard it looked like I had probably done enough.
So it was really disappointing to miss out and very soon after I did my cruciate ligaments which kept me out for ages.
Almost as soon as I got back from that, I did it again and it really didn’t work out for me at Sarries. Eddie Jones came in and when he took over I didn’t really get a chance.
I got the opportunity to head over to France with Racing Metro. They were in the second division at the time but you had people there like Andrew Mehrtens and Simon Raiwalui and they were very serious about promotion.
A year later they brought in Sébastien Chabal, Lionel Nallet and Francois Steyn and we had a really good season back in the Top 14.
I’ve now come to Lille and am still playing and doing a bit of coaching.