I came on against Italy and made a difference

I’M currently five years into being master in charge of rugby at Barnard Castle School, which is where it all began for me on my journey to becoming a professional rugby player.

- Jon Newcombe

I was part of a very good age group, which included Mathew Tait and Ross Batty, and one of our star players was a guy called James Hamer. He was a full-back but he did his ACL three times in as many years at the start of his professional career. We were ‘the nearly men’, getting beaten in all the finals.

I didn’t think I would be going into pro sport at all when I was in school. I’m very much from an Army background and I was going to join the Royal Marines and play sport through them. I wasn’t in any academies, I had done some county stuff but nothing major. But then John Fletcher got in touch when I was in the Upper Sixth and asked me to go to Falcons to train. So I did that and they offered me an associate contract and I never looked back.

Fletch and Walts (Peter Walton) were exactly what I needed as an immature 18-year-old lad who had no clue what was going on. They were very good at allowing you to express yourself. They were the diamond duo. In the academy we had at Newcastle, I think 10 of us went on to play for England in the end. I still stay in touch with Fletch now, his boy is at Falcons, where I am doing some skills coaching as a consultant alongside my role with the school.

I actually made my Falcons debut off the wing in the 2004/05 season. I think it was more down to a lack of options rather than my pace! In my second game, I came on as scrum-half, when we were 60-odd points down against Leicester at their place, and I remember looking across and seeing that they were bringing Martin Johnson, Martin Corry and Neil Back on, and we were bringing me on, and I thought ‘oh my god’.