ENGLAND and Harlequins full-back Mike Brown has praised former club Melksham in helping to develop him into the player he is today.

Despite only spending a season at the club when he played for the U16 set up, after leaving Salisbury, Brown has fond memories of the club where his dad was also a coach.

The 29-year-old will start again for England this weekend when they face Samoa at Twickenham with pulling on the white jersey a dream of his since he was very young.

Now he hopes that he can inspire the next generation of players at Melksham to emulate his success on the pitch.

“I was at Melksham and Corsham, it was back then, U16s and just for the year,” he said.

“I was from Salisbury and I was playing in the Wilts and Dorset set-up and Melksham seemed to have a good few players at that time, so I decided to go and play with them for a year because they had a good team and got on with them really well.

“It was a great local club and I had a really good year there and really enjoyed it. Everyone was really nice and I really enjoyed my rugby there.

“I haven’t been there for a good number of years now but it is definitely important to remember where you started and the journey you went on to achieve what you have been able to achieve.

“Obviously Melksham, alongside Salisbury, were both big parts of my rugby career, both local clubs that helped with my development and two clubs where I enjoyed my time playing rugby.

“If you enjoy your time playing rugby you want to keep playing and they were a massive help in me doing that.

“My dad was also a coach at both of the clubs and we enjoyed our time together which was great.

“You want to be a role model that young kids can look up to and hopefully the best way I can do that is going out on the pitch and giving my all in the England jersey which it is a privilege and honour to do.”

It has been a disappointing autumn so far for England, who have been on the wrong end of narrow defeats by both New Zealand and more recently South Africa last Saturday.

Brown has failed to score a try in either game but hopes to change that on Saturday against Samoa and stake his claim for a place in the World Cup squad next year.

“First and foremost I am massively disappointed just like everyone else in the squad,” he added.

“I am reasonably happy (with my own performance). I haven’t looked at it in much depth and obviously there will be stuff I would like to do better.

“But there was also some things I was really happy with but it is hard to look at my own performance individually when collectively we didn’t come away with what we wanted.

“I think we’ll have to look at our discipline which let us down at the weekend.

“Discipline also comes under the mental side of things, discipline to make the correct decisions and execute that in the right way because at the weekend there were a lot of opportunities that we missed out on again.

“I’ve not yet played in a World Cup so I am desperate to do that, in a team that has a realistic chance of doing well in a World Cup.

“We’ve got a great squad building forward but it is still a long way off and personally I am just taking each game as it comes and doing my best to get picked for that next game.”

For more from Mike Brown see the attached video below

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