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To use his own words, Sam Warburton spent six months living under a rock after the Lions tour, away from the media glare and the public spotlight.

He also used that time to undergo what he calls “a full MOT”, having operations to rectify long-standing neck and knee problems, ruling him out of action for this season.

Now he has given his first interview since September to rugby correspondent Simon Thomas, where he reveals just how battered his body had become and how tough that was to cope with mentally.

He talks about how he believes the surgery will extend his career, gives his thoughts on Wales’ Six Nations campaign to date and his new role as a TV pundit.

And the two-times Lions skipper also reflects on his decade in the game as a professional as he prepares to embark on his testimonial year with Cardiff Blues.

(Image: Rob Browne)

Q: You will be launching your testimonial year in April. Can you believe it’s a decade since you started out with the Blues?

A: No, it just feels like it’s flown by. It only seems like yesterday I was starting out as a professional. In my first game, I dislocated my shoulder after 15 minutes, so start as you mean to go on!

I can’t believe it’s been ten years. When I was a young player here, the idea of knocking on the door of 30 seemed an absolute age away. You think you have got so much time, but it’s scary how fast ten years have gone.

A testimonial is something I didn’t think would happen until I finished playing. But then I suddenly realised this is actually my tenth year.

I was a little bit reluctant to have a testimonial, because I felt too young. But I was asking ex-players like Martyn Williams, Jamie Robinson and Rhys Williams who had them with the Blues and Rhys said he was 29 when he had his, so do it. I didn’t feel so bad about going ahead with it then.

Hywel Peterson agreed to be my testimonial chairman and the Blues and the WRU granted permission, so I am very grateful to them.

Q: You are out of action for this season having undergone neck and knee surgery following the Lions tour. How was that decision reached?

A: Ideally, I was going to come back from the Lions and carry on playing. The boys on NDCs had eight weeks off after the tour, so I gave myself four weeks completely off. Then Jonathan Davies and me were training partners at the Union for the second four week block. We were meant to be off, but we wanted to do our own stuff. So we did a lot of running and weights, all the conditioning stuff you need to get back.

Then I went back to the Blues and, in my first rugby session, the neck went again.

Q: When you say the neck went, what exactly does that mean? What does it feel like?

A: People call it a stinger, but that doesn’t do it justice at all. When you have a stinger, you have a whack on the neck and you have a little bit of a tingling sensation down your arm and after about 10 seconds it goes away.

Since 2012, I have been having nerve problems with my left arm, which have different kind of symptoms. When I have an impact on the neck, the disc pinches the nerve which supplies the arm, so your arm just goes. The only way I can explain it is like when you bite ice cream on a tooth and it’s super-sensitive. It’s like that down your whole arm and fingers and it’s really intense for about two minutes and I couldn’t do anything. Sometimes it lasted longer than that.

Normally you get it from a big collision, but I was getting them from doing lineouts, from getting nudged or just from looking over my shoulder really quickly because I was pinching that nerve.

Over five years it just gradually deteriorated more and more and more to the point where I couldn’t do contact and I didn’t want to tackle anyone anymore. That’s how bad the nerves got. I just didn’t have the confidence to take contact.

I was getting burning sensations down my neck when I was driving. I knew it wasn’t right what was going on in my neck.

The last 12 months, I have really been having to manage it. Every training day, I was in having some form of treatment on it.

I knew I had to get it sorted and nip it in the bud rather than just keep plugging along at 70 per cent.

We had scans, I saw a specialist and he said the obvious thing to do was to get it operated on.

They shaved off a little bit of bone from the bottom of one vertebrae and the top of another, to increase the space between them to help the nerve come out, just so it doesn’t get pinched.

I had to sign a form beforehand accepting there was a one in 3,000 chance of paralysis, which isn’t great before an operation.

They said if you want to play rugby again, it’s worth having. If you are not bothered about playing rugby again, it wasn’t worth having.

It felt it was worth the very small risk because I just had to try and get back to the top of my game once more in my career.

Since the operation in September, everything has gone away, it’s perfect. So I’m really pleased.

Q: At what point did the knee become something you had to get resolved as well?

A: When I was back running again, I could feel my left knee wasn’t right. It hasn’t been right for years. I have probably had about four grade two medial ligament strains over the past five years.

Basically the medial was so loose, it was going all the time. They said if you are having your neck done, you may as well get the knee sorted out too.

When the surgeon looked at it, he said I had one and a half centimetres of lateral movement in my knee, so he wasn’t sure how I was playing! The ligament was basically hanging on by a thread.

They took it out and put in a synthetic ligament. Now my knee is lovely and rigid again. I haven’t had that for about six years.

(Image: Â©INPHO/Dan Sheridan)

Q: It sounds like you have been in for a service.

A: I have had an absolute full MOT!

I want to come back and play at my absolute very best. That’s the reason I’ve done this. I felt on the Lions tour I was playing at about 70 to 80 per cent.

I had seven individual strappings for those last two Test matches - both knees, both ankles, both shoulders, elbow. It was just a joke.

I just want to get back to my absolute very best. It’s frustrating when you can’t do that with your body.

Warren Gatland, the Union and the Blues were brilliant. They just said whatever you need done get it done and get yourself back 100 per cent.

I know I will be back in the summer, come pre-season, as close to 100 per cent as I’ve ever been.

I have got to thank the Blues and the WRU because they have seen the bigger picture from a player welfare point of view.

They have seen there is no point in me playing on and just deteriorating and making my body worse.

Hopefully they will get much more out of me now for the next few years because of it.

Q: Do you think this will extend your career then?

A: 100 per cent.

I was worried how long I would be able to go on playing if I didn’t get these issues sorted, mentally as well, because I didn’t want to commit to the physical side of the game and without the physical side of the game that’s me over. That’s my game. I said if my head’s not right to play because of my body, I’ve got to get my body right to get my head right to play again.

Now I am visualising myself putting in big shots again. It’s nice I have got that hunger back and I’m looking forward to getting back on the field next season.

Q: So how much longer can you now see yourself playing?

A: I am contracted until the year of the 2019 World Cup and then I’ll finish that season with the Blues. I will be 31 then.

I am keeping the door open. I want to get to that point and see how I feel. I am not going to say I am calling it a day there, I am not going to say I want to play until I’m 34. I want to see exactly how I feel.

I only want to play if I know I can be physically at my very best. If I can’t, I don’t really want to play. If I get to 31 and I still feel great and the body feels good, I will definitely keep going.

(Image: Mike Halfpenny)

Q: Being out of action these past six months, what has an average day been like for Sam Warburton?

A: Lots of physio!

Luckily my brother Ben is a physio at the Blues and he has been in charge of what I’m doing. He comes over and treats me a lot. His physio bed is down in my front room, next to the TV.

I haven’t run for four or five months, but I am back in the gym now.

I can tell already just by getting up in the middle of the night and walking to the toilet to spend a penny, normally that would be quite tough work. I would be really stiff walking across the landing.

Now in the morning I can hop out of bed and walk downstairs and I feel great. So already I can see how it has paid dividends and I am looking forward to transferring that onto the pitch.

Q: After the Lions tour of New Zealand, where you so much in the media glare as skipper, did you also feel you needed to get out of the spotlight for a while?

A: To be honest, yes. I said to the Blues and the WRU that I would do anything they wanted commercially, but I didn’t want to do any interviews.

Sometimes people will joke to me that they have seen me in the papers again and they are sick of my face. But I don’t want to be in there, I am not asking to be in the paper.

(Image: Rob Browne)

I have had that pressure since probably 2011. I have constantly felt like I’ve been in the spotlight. So I just wanted to live under a rock for six months and I did and it was lovely.

I just wanted to be Sam the dad, the husband, the family guy and just spend time with my daughter, to do my training and knuckle down and focus on my recovery without any other distractions. That’s what I wanted and I have got that.

It’s been more mentally as much as anything, everything from the pressure of playing for Wales, dropping the captaincy last season and then putting myself under a huge amount of pressure personally in that Six Nations to get on the Lions tour and then go through that tour with all the niggles I had out there. That was probably the most stressful tour I have had.

I was constantly battling injury on that trip. Had it not been for coaches who knew me, I might not have got a Test cap. Fortunately they knew I needed one or two hit-outs before I could hit my straps again.

By the time I came home and I was having the operations, I decided I just needed to get away completely and give my mind a break as much as anything else.

So this is my first interview since September.

(Image: PA)

Q: You’ve been back in the spotlight a bit these past couple of weeks as a TV pundit on the Six Nations. How have you enjoyed that?

A: Being a pundit is just an excuse to get into the game for free I guess and watch it!

It’s actually nice being there at the coal face and still involved. I actually really enjoy it and it does plant a few seeds for life after rugby. It’s something I wouldn’t mind pursuing when I finish playing.

Hopefully I can give a little bit of insight and help people enjoy and understand rugby a little bit more.

Q: What have you made of how Wales have performed in their first two matches?

A: I think it’s been really good actually.

If I was going back to Wales training today, I would be walking in there with a spring in my step because the Championship is still on, which is great.

There is still a very good chance we can win the title.

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

We have to win every game now. We have to go to Ireland, where we have won a good few times lately, so the boys know they can do it, and then we have got two home games which we should be expecting to win if we want to be a Championship-winning team.

Then you have to rely on Ireland or Scotland to beat England.

If I was Wales, I would be so optimistic. They have played some really good stuff.

I was at the England game and I watched it back again properly on TV because you can see a lot more that way, with all the intricate stuff at the breakdown, and we weren’t far off.

The scrum was solid and we got a little bit of an edge there. The conditions weren’t great with the rain coming down and it was a bit greasy out there, but towards the end of the game we managed to play a bit.

If I was Wales and they were playing England again next week, I bet they would all think they are going to win.

There was a lot of good to come out of that match, so if I was Wales I would be full of confidence going to Dublin.

Q: You are one of about nine regular first teamers missing through injury. Do you feel the way Wales are performing despite those absentees shows the strength in depth that has been developed?

A: Massively so. To have so many boys out and beat Scotland like we did and to go to Twickenham and do what we did, we have 100 per cent confirmed that there is strength in depth now.

It’s great that guys are getting experience now and playing so well.

We could now pick a squad of 32, 33 where each guy could start and we perhaps haven’t had that in the past. That’s a great place to be 18 months out from a World Cup.

It’s so good for the squad. You need to have people breathing down your neck to be a good team. You can’t have only 15 boys.

Had we perhaps had the depth we have now at the 2015 World Cup, it might have been a little bit different. We might have been able to cope with the injuries a bit better, even though we did pretty well.

So it’s all really positive.