Quite genuinely I hope the guy gets an England cap and gets it soon I have respect for him

Quite genuinely, I hope the guy gets an England cap, and gets it soon I have respect for him. The Recreation Grounders have used their erstwhile colleague as a human doormat more than once over the last couple of years and there is no great likelihood of it being any different tomorrow. In spite of this – perhaps even because of it – few Bristol players will back themselves more heavily than Regan, who will be at the very core of the home effort, both positionally and inspirationally.”There are some bloody good hookers in the Premiership, but not many of them are English,” he said, mischievously, before identifying Lee Mears as an exception – the same Mears who understudied Regan at Bath and faces him tomorrow afternoon.”I looked after Lee when I was down at the Recreation Ground; I taught him everything he knows. There you have it.”Bath are no longer the best – not quite, although their forward pack, powered as it is by Steve Borthwick and Danny Grewcock operating behind a veritable behemoth of a front row, is as close to a state-of-the-art unit as can currently be found in the Premiership. We had the players to prosper but it wasn’t happening, so in that situation it comes down to a career move. It tore me up to go elsewhere, especially to bitter rivals like Bath Painful isn’t the word. They were the best, though, and if you can’t beat the best, you join the best In my first season there, we won the Heineken Cup.

Bristol didn’t have things right off the pitch when I was here last – they were going down the chute, basically, because nothing was organised the way it should have been. But they’re not getting any younger and it won’t do them any harm not to flog up to Yorkshire every couple of weeks.”To be straight with you, I don’t think I’d have left Bristol in the first place if the game had stayed amateur But in the professional world, you go places to win things. But I’ve always felt close to the Bristol club – if my first priority has been the team paying my wages, my second priority has been to find out what’s happening at the Memorial Ground – and by moving back now I can spend what time is left to me where I feel I belong Apart from anything else, it’s easier on my family. My parents have been incredibly loyal, incredibly supportive; they’ve barely missed a game I’ve played, anywhere in the world.

He could have stayed at Headingley for another season or so, which would have seen him safely into semi-retirement, but the lure of a second spell with Bristol was overpowering and, having committed himself to a two-year deal at his old stamping ground, he could not be happier.”Home’s home at the end of the day,” he explained. “Leeds? I loved it there and I have incredibly fond memories of the place. People were playing mind games with me, and I’d had all the mind games I could take.”Regan was playing for Leeds at the time, having moved there from Bath in 2002. Everyone said I was the form hooker in the country, so to lose my place without having an opportunity to defend it was bloody hurtful. But I’d won the shirt back on merit during the trip to New Zealand and Australia last year, and I returned from the tour buoyant and happy, with a spring in my step.” And then? “It was the same old shit, wasn’t it? I wasn’t even picked on the bench for the Canada game, which was quite a kick in the teeth.”Steve Thompson [his rival from Northampton] was selected, two days after we’d played against each other in a Premiership game and I’d had the better of the contest I’d even scored a try that day.

well, who knows? I might have won myself another Test cap.”What made me give it away when I did? Anger and frustration, as much as anything. I’d been in and out of the England side for years, so it wasn’t as though I was being precious about it. It’s just that looking at it from this distance, I think I probably could have gone on the Lions tour, which would have been wonderful. I know I was outplaying people in my position last season, so had I been available… The old ruffian has been suffering from an ankle injury of fairly alarming proportions and it remains touch and go as to whether he will start, but of all the “wouldn’t miss it for the world” games, this one takes the biscuit. “If I can walk,” he said, “I’ll be there.”All the same, the England business continues to prey on his mind. Are the tears still flowing? No, but he remains distinctly unamused.It is as well that he has better things to think about, not least tomorrow’s derby between Bristol and Bath at the Memorial Ground, which will mark, among other things, Regan’s return to the home-town club he left – for Bath, as it happens – in 1997.

“Yes, I think my decision was premature,” he admitted after considerable thought “I’ll own up to that, since you ask But I’ve made my bed, so that’s that There’s no going back. I know I’m playing better than any hooker in England at the moment, but that doesn’t appear to count. What is the point of flogging up and down the country when I can concentrate on playing for my club, where I know where I stand? I can’t remember being more upset about anything in all the time I’ve been playing rugby and I don’t mind admitting that I’ve shed a tear over this.” Is he flabbergasted still? Yes. “I don’t want people to think this is a case of sour grapes, but I really don’t think I can take any more. Stoicism had never been one of Regan’s more obvious characteristics, even though he had accepted and absorbed any number of thorough kickings with barely a flinch, so under the circumstances, there was only one thing for it.
“I’m flabbergasted,” he said at the time. Generally speaking, there are two ways of calling it a day as a consequence of public rejection: the stoical approach or the double-barrelled “tell ‘em like it is” strategy.