Although the game with France was my 51st cap for England, I had real problems sleeping in the days leading up to yesterday's victory at Twickenham. Having been out of the team for the previous Six Nations matches, I was desperate to make an impression and constantly went through the various calls and moves that needed to be absorbed before the encounter.

You don't realise how much you miss Test rugby until you are out of the squad. When you are back in club rugby, you forget the details of an international build-up because you are just watching the game and wishing you were involved. The time when you really appreciate what's missing is when the nerves kick in during the final days before the match and despite all of those caps, I really think that period gets worse.

I wasn't nervous because of the expectation of others, it was the pressure I put on myself to justify my selection and once I had got everything sorted in my mind.

It was a fantastic start and everything we practised on the training pitch in the week came off and that is great credit to Martin Johnson and the coaching staff and their analysis of the French.

There have been periods during the previous Six Nations games when England have been dominant but didn't accumulate the points - the difference against France was that once we scored that early try it had a snowball effect.

We addressed the discipline problem against the French, although I have to admit to conceding three penalties.

I will probably take a bit of stick for those errors of judgement but in my defence I will point out that I did manage to turn the ball over three times in mauls, which I was very pleased about.

At least the penalties did not cost us any points, although one came in full glare of the watching crowd after the French had kicked the ball to me in our half.

Ordinarily, I would have booted the ball into their territory but I saw Mark Cueto was coming back to help out and, then, couldn't spot him out of the corner of either eye which left me with the option of taking the tackle and off loading the ball. They way I see it, at least I was back there, even if the ref ruled I held on to the ball for too long.

Despite the margin of victory, we know there is considerable room for improvement, which is exciting as we have a short turn-around with Scotland arriving at Twickenham on Saturday and now the opportunity to finish with three wins in the championship.