I have long made it clear that I am not a great reader of my own press and I don’t think it’s much of a secret that, when the media circus is in town and the spotlight is looking for me, I’d rather duck it. I guess that’s one reason why, when I am asked over and over if this was a “dream comeback”, I try to explain that, as far as I am concerned, I am just doing my job.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Saturday was just another day in the office. That would be smug. But while there was much to be pleased about and while I am delighted that it appears to have made quite a few people quite happy, I feel bound to explain that Saturday was actually something I’d been preparing for for more than three years.

Someone asked me about professional sportsmen making comebacks and Michael Jordan’s name was thrown in. Now, obviously, I couldn’t really compare myself to Jordan, he has long been one of my sporting heroes and I would always look up to him.

But in terms of comebacks, he helps me to make my point. When Jordan left the Chicago Bulls, he tried to switch sports and turn himself into a baseball player. So when he came back to the basketball court, he was effectively coming back cold.

I may have made my comeback in an England shirt on Saturday but, as far as I was concerned, I hadn’t really been away. Every day that I’d been out of the game, I’d been training for the day when I was back in it. So I was absent, but not in some rugby wilderness. With every injury, I had a plan: different parts of my game or my physique that I could work on.

So I don’t see myself as particularly different to Jason Robinson. He’d been away and come back, too. I’ve spent my time working for and preparing for that day, so I could come in and thrive from the off.

So, yes, it was sort of a dream comeback. But it was also one that I’d thought about, prepared for. I am delighted it went quite well, but I can’t say that it was a surprise — as in a shock — because I’d just spent three years practising for it.

One particular challenge that did not make it particularly easy was the new ball — and for that I had only a few days to prepare as opposed to three years. It was still a Gilbert ball, but they had introduced a new, slightly different model and it took some getting used to. I’d been working hard with Toby Flood all week trying to master it. I found its weight and balance more conducive to handling and passing than kicking and certainly during the week, when we were practising our kicking, quite a lot of kicks were going wide.

That simply increased the pressure on the kicking and, with it, the concentration and precision required. So, fast-forward to the middle of the first half against Scotland, I’d already kicked my first penalty, which was from in front of the posts, but my second and third were certainly not. That was when I said to Phil Vickery: “Do you want me to take a shot at this?”, to which he replied “If you think you’ve got it, take it.” That’s the backing you need, complete confidence in you, a real boost.

And when you then see the ball going over, you can build on the momentum. A couple of them stayed true when they may well have been blown off line and that is the kind of luck you need.

When things aren’t going for you, or a couple of decisions you take don’t come off, you have to pick up the pieces and reassemble, but that was not often the case against Scotland.

It helps when you have people like Harry Ellis and Andy Farrell around you, playing the way they were, and the forwards playing that way, too, it meant that a lot of my decisions around the field were turned into positives.

But there was a real sense of momentum gathering throughout the whole match, for me at least. And that is what you need to start building a decent performance.

The challenge now, as I have said since the Scotland game finished, is to do it again and again. I can’t stand having regrets, I can’t stand going to bed on a feeling of disappointment and lying awake until the early hours thinking about what I could or should have done differently.

On Saturday night, though, I did sleep quite well. In the morning, my mouth was still a bit of a fat, ugly mess but, just for a while, a sense of satisfaction remained, too.