Care column: Six Nations wild card Steve Borthwick could pick for England, my take on Eddie Jones comments & my Lions XV

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The Christmas period comes around really quickly and before you know it, the Six Nations is upon us. This is a really interesting period for England, but also for the whole of the Gallagher Premiership. There are a lot of lads who will have one eye soon on a Lions shirt; it definitely starts to play into your mind because you start thinking that every single game could be the reason why you might have a chance to play for the Lions. Conversely, it could be the reason you don’t, which is the awful thing that you can’t help thinking about.

It’s a really exciting time. I played against Bristol last week for Harlequins and they are paving the way at the moment in terms of their attack. Someone like Gabriel Ibitoye, who I know really well from his days at Harlequins - he has to play internationally, he’s too good not to. He’s really sticking his hand up week in week out to say to Steve Borthwick, ‘look I can do something a little bit different, pick me’. So I’m really excited for him that if he can keep doing that, then he might get a call for the Six Nations.

I loved working with Andy Farrell when he coached with England. Firstly, he’s a brilliant bloke, he’s someone who’s honest. He tells you what he expects from you and then you go out and deliver it for him. He cares for you as a person, which I think is massive for the players, you feel like you’re cared for and you’re fighting for someone that genuinely really likes you and wants you to do well. He’s a very emotional coach, he’ll use that a lot. He knows what it’s like to represent your country. He’s a brilliant tactical coach, but also I’ve never really had a coach as good at Faz as delivering messages in a meeting that makes you want to run through brick walls for him. He’s incredible at that.

I never got to go on a Lions tour, which still hurts me a little bit, but you need good tourists and team-mates, so a lot of that plays into squad selection. I think Faz is a great judge of character, and I’m really excited to see the squad that he’s going to put together because there are some brilliant players knocking around that will all be putting their hands up.

My Lions XV as it stands: Porter, George, Furlong, Itoje, McCarthy, Doris, Van der Flier, Earl; Gibson-Park, Smith, Van der Merwe, Tuipulotu, Jones, Feyi-Waboso, Kinghorn

My autobiography is my book, so they are my words and I stand by it all. I was a little bit disappointed that there was only one side of my story being put out there to start with. I feel the book in general is very balanced when it comes to Eddie Jones; the positives and the negatives. A few journalists that had maybe wanted to get their opinion across on Eddie for quite a while but hadn’t had the opportunity to – I almost gave them some ammunition to then go for it, which is fine because I did say all those things. I just felt that the publicisation of it wasn’t a full reflection of my opinions. So basically what I’m trying to say is, they just put all the bad stuff in and none of the nice stuff I said.

I’ve not spoken to Eddie this autumn. I put in the book acknowledgements that I’d like to think at some point we could share a glass of wine together and share a few tales. I hold no grudges at all, that’s what I wanted to get across in the book. I’m not bitter about anything. Everything that Eddie did with me during my England career, I’m sure he had a reason for doing it at that time. Whether I agree with it all – no, I don’t and that’s what I’ve tried to say in the book.

Anything that I’ve written in there I would say to anyone’s face. What I didn’t want the book to be at all was me slagging people off without any context. I just wanted to say my story, my opinion and if people agree or disagree, then that’s absolutely fine. The overall response I’ve had from the book is that people are enjoying it and it’s a little bit different to normal autobiographies, it’s as honest as I can be.

There’s no hiding away from the fact that England's recent results aren’t good enough. But that’s been the same for the last seven years. When I had the chance to play with Steve at the World Cup and in the Six Nations afterwards, a lot of the conversations he was having with us – especially the older boys – was that we haven’t won enough in an England shirt. And it’s so true. For the amount of players and resources we’ve got with England, we should be winning more Six Nations, we should have won more World Cups. That’s something that Steve’s really trying to impress on these boys is that you don’t get these opportunities again.

I finished my England career and luckily I won three Six Nations titles. I look back at that and go: 'It should have been five or six'. It was great, but three isn’t enough. It’s time soon now for this England side to start winning these games, and I think they will. This Six Nations will be a great acid test, we’ll see in the Six Nations if they have learnt their lessons from the autumn.

I still really enjoy playing. I know that my time is coming. I absolutely have loved working with TNT this season, I’ve really enjoyed doing that and a few bits around the game. I’ve got a few decisions to make in the next couple of months that will decide what I’m going to do next. So I’ve got a bit of thinking to do over Christmas and we’ll make some decisions fairly soon, I think.

The new generation does feel different. I was so proud of Joe Marler retiring, but selfishly it was quite sad for me, because Joe was one of the last ones from our era. I say our era, I’m four years older than Joe. It’s one of those where you’re looking around the changing room going, ‘where’s everyone gone?’ It happens every year that you lose your really good mates that you’ve spent so much time with, especially lads that have been at the club forever. Joe was an academy boy at the club, he’s been there for 20 years.

I’m in my 19th year playing for Quins, every year more and more lads seem to go, and you’re kind of the only old boy remaining. Luckily for me, I’ve got Joe Launchbury, Stefan Lewies and Irne Herbst who are just over 30, but there are not many of us left. I do see the game has changed a little bit in terms of the age profile of squads, it’s definitely way younger than it used to be.

With that there comes a time where it’s like ‘right, maybe it’s my time soon’. I always said I’d keep playing until I either didn’t enjoy it any more or didn’t feel like I could still do it and contribute to the team. And currently, I still feel like I enjoy it and I still feel like I can help, so it’s not like I feel like I’m letting anyone down when I’m playing. We’ll just see how the body feels in a few weeks and make a decision.

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