No matter who you’re playing, pulling on the England shirt is always a huge honour.

I know a lot of people have questioned the wisdom of playing Saturday’s mid-season international against France but all the lads involved will enjoy the experience.

It’s good to get the team together because you don’t get many chances in the season to gel and bond, so this is ideal.

It’s been suggested that the opposition should be changed but, even though France are a developing nation, if they get their best side out they can be a challenge for most teams.

Everyone wants to play Test football and I don’t think any of the shine is taken off it as far as the players are concerned.

The England game means some of the lads got a chance to see Sam Burgess for the first time in a while this week after he flew back into the country.

You would have thought he’d be big-time now considering he’s rubbing shoulders with Russell Crowe, or ‘Rusty’ as he calls him, but he was just the same old Burge.

Meanwhile, congratulations have to go to Sam’s brother George, along with Cain Southernwood, Adam O’Brien and Tom Lillicrop, who were all involved in the successful England Academy tour to France.

It’s the first taste of international rugby for them and they got a decent win. It’s also outstanding for the club to have so many talented youngsters coming through.

This week’s game against Crusaders is an important one for us.

The defeat against Huddersfield was very hard to take. Morale had been good prior to the game and we were confident of getting a result but we got outplayed across the park.

It’s not like us to put in a performance like that and we’re all the more determined to put it right.

It’s been tough getting all our squad on the park but we know it’s important to start putting together results and performances as we build to the end of the season.