By any standards, Steve Thompson’s appearance at Twickenham on Saturday is remarkable.

In 2007 he damaged a disc in his neck, which left him one stage away from paralysis, retired from rugby and set off for Brive as a forwards consultant. His weight ballooned to more than 21 stone and that World Cup winner’s medal of 2003 became no more than a memory.

But at headquarters he will make his seventh appearance against Australia, he will win his 49th England cap and roundly declares that his ambition is to reach the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand. To achieve that goal, he must go head to head with the youngster who succeeded him as Northampton hooker, Dylan Hartley, but who is to say that, after two years of more troughs than peaks, Thompson, 31, will not make it.

He feels fitter than at any time during his playing career, more explosive, with the agility in his play that was a hallmark when he first appeared on England’s horizon in 2001. What he also possesses now is the maturity that was not always apparent in his younger days, the ability to smell the roses along the way.

“It will be the little things, the journey to the ground, getting off the bus and the buzz of the crowd, the things that I just took for granted before,” he said.

Had he not left the Midlands for France, none of this might have happened. Brive had signed him as a player, but were prepared to honour their side of the bargain when it became apparent that he could no longer play, and he acknowledges the debt he owes to Daniel Derichebourg, the club’s owner at the time, and Simon Gillham, the French side’s English chief executive. It was there he sought the second opinion on his neck condition that placed him on the road to recovery.

He hired a personal trainer, his weight came down to 18 stone, but only when he returned to his feet after a scrum went down in training and realised that his neck was sound and that there were no longer pins and needles in his arm, did he start to believe that playing was an option. In the bad days he had no more than 40 per cent movement in his neck, now it is about 85 to 90 per cent.

“I’m refuelled, I’m fighting fit, it’s all about the future,” Thompson said. “I have to try and cement my place in the side, I want to go to another World Cup and I believe I have that in me.

“You don’t realise how good something is until you lose it. I was talking to Jonny Wilkinson at the weekend, he’s much more relaxed and happy, he had all those injuries at Newcastle, a lot of pressure. He’s still got that focus, but it sounds like he has more of a balance to his life, and that goes for me, too.”