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Three years ago, and three years after helping England win the World Cup, hooker Steve Thompson's rugby career was over.

At 28 he was forced by a neck injury to give up the game he loved and excelled in.

He took a hefty insurance payment, drowned his sorrows, and saw his weight balloon as he took his first, tentative steps towards a coaching career.

Yet on Saturday, in one of the most unlikely and uplifting comebacks in sport, he will run out to face Australia at Twickenham as, once again, England's starting hooker.

It will be his first start since the 2006 Six Nations and though he made a cameo two-minute appearance off the bench against Argentina in June, it will be a special moment.

"It was my target always. That was my whole reason for coming back, to try to play for England again, to play at the highest level or there's no point coming back," Thompson said.

"But the way it's happened in the last couple of weeks, it's sort of taken me by surprise. It's a different feeling, it's like winning your first cap again really. I am nervous but I know what to expect from the whole day."

It is a very different attitude to when he was first told it was all over, the bad medical news coming after a slide in form that had seen him toppled from being one of the best hookers in the world to the periphery of the England squad.

"As soon as I was told I couldn't play again it think it was a bit of a relief," he said. "I thought I'd never say that but that was just what it had come to."

So there were more than a few eyebrows raised months later when Thompson opted to repay his six figure insurance payoff after receiving a second medical opinion that it would not be dangerous for him to return to the game.

After almost year on the sidelines and with French club Brive having stood by him in his darkest days, he was delighted to start repaying them on the pitch as his weight edged down down from a mammoth 138kg to his current 115kg.

"We did a live scrummage test on my first session back and it went down," he said.

"I felt my neck go a bit and it was the same feeling as before but when I stood up and it was actually all right and to have that scare early on really helped me.

"I believe that having that time off has really helped. If you look at some great players like Lawrence Dallaglio and Jonny Wilkinson they came back stronger from time out. I played non-stop rugby and now I feel really rejuvenated."

Saturday will be the first time since the 2003 World Cup final that he and Wilkinson have played together and he said his relationship with then-captain and current manager Martin Johnson had barely changed.

"I was always under him in the pecking order," he said. "He commanded respect as a player and it's the same now. He can be one of the lads but when he looks at you with that frown you know you are in trouble."

Memories of the glory days have been parked for a while though.

"I've got to forget about it for a few more years when I can start drinking again - like I did last time," said Thompson now 31 and who will win his 49th cap on Saturday.

"It's all about the future. I'm here now and I've got to cement my place and I really want to go to another World Cup.

"I know I've only got a few years left in me as a rugby player. I know it could end tomorrow like it did before.

"You don't realise how good something is until you lose it and suddenly I've got a chance to get it back."

Reuters