Brive hooker Steve Thompson has vowed to grab his “second chance” after being recalled to the England squad after a three-year absence.

The 30-year-old World Cup winner was forced into early retirement by a serious back and neck injury in 2007, but admits that it may have been the best thing that could have happened to him, despite subsequently having to send back a cool £500,000 insurance payout.

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“I’ve lost money coming back but I don’t regret it,” he said after his recall for England’s summer internationals. “I felt like I’d lost that edge just before I had my injury. I wasn’t enjoying rugby so the injury came at a good time. But later I felt I had so much to give.”

In common with several other England internationals he lost his way somewhat after the tumultuous World Cup victory in Australian in 2003 and struggled for further motivation.

“I’d lost that fire in my belly and it was always hard. I didn’t want to train any more and started cutting corners, so I lost my edge. The burnout was just down to playing too much rugby – four or five years of back-to-back rugby.”

Interview: Steve Thompson - 'I want to stay in France after I finish playing'

Now he’s got the chance to add to his 47 England caps, and possibly have a shot at the 2011 World Cup judging by Martin Johnson’s comments this week – about him being young for an international front-row player.

“I’ve definitely still got it in me. I’m a lot more relaxed now because it feels like a second chance,” said Thompson. “People say you can be too relaxed but now everything is a bonus and I’m enjoying it all the more because of that.”

Thompson joined Brive while he was still injured – taking up a coaching and recruitment role as opposed to his initially agreed playing contract – but he soon got itchy feet while watching his contemporaries out on the pitch.

A second specialist opinion confirmed that his neck had healed sufficiently to resume playing, then it was just a case of shedding the extras pounds – or kilos – and getting match fit again.

“I trained the hardest I have ever done when I did decide to come back. Being selected by England is the cherry on the cake,” he said.

Thompson’s selection, following that of club-mate Andy Goode for the Six Nations Championship, also undermines the scare tactics currently being used the RFU in their failing efforts to try and keep England internationals playing in the Guinness Premiership.

Rob Andrew, director of elite rugby, has not been short of a threat or two in recent months as the player exodus has gathered momentum, but the selection of French-based players such as Thompson, Goode, Jamie Noon (also at Brive from next season) and Tom Croft (who has joined Toulon) appears to confirm that Johnson will be his own man and will pick whoever he likes. Fellow Briviste Riki Flutey would also have been selected had he not been already named by the British Lions.

By his own admission Johnson’s only true barometer of Thompson’s club form has come via DVDs of Top 14 matches, but with so many internationals now heading to France surely it isn’t asking too much for a selector to hop on a plane for 90 minutes.

There’s a major difference between principles and intransigence, and the RFU need to get their collective heads around that. After all, both Goode and Thompson have attributed their respective international recalls to being revitalised after moving to France.

France coach Marc Lièvremont, meanwhile, has confirmed a 10-strong list of players on stand-by for the national team’s summer tour to New Zealand and Australia. They mini-squad, which includes in-form Biarritz scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili, is designed as cover for players who may get injured during the Top 14 play-offs – involving Perpignan, Stade Toulousain, Clermont Auvergne and Stade Francais.

France's stand-by replacements: Faure, Kayser, Jacquet, Yachvili, Beauxis, Baby, Poitrenaud, Malzieu and Floch.

The France ‘A’ squad to play in the Nations Cup in Romania was also named this week, with five players included from ProD2 sides: Lyon pair Aliki Fakate and Rémy Grosso, Agen’s Romain Sola and Yohan Huget (ProD2’s leading try-scorer) and Narbonne’s Romain Martial.

France ‘A’ squad:
Forwards: Luc Ducalcon (Castres), Yannick Forestier (Castres), Aretz Iguiniz (Bayonne), Yohan Montes (Stade Toulousain), Brice Mach (Montauban), Jean-Philippe Genevois (Bourgoin), Aliki Fakat (Lyon), Yoann Maestri (Toulon), Guillaume Vilaceca (Perpignan), Damien Chouly (Perpignan), Ibrahim Diarra (Montauban), Steve Malonga (Castres), Jean-Pierre Perez (Perpignan), Julien Puricelli (Bayonne)
Backs: Julien Audy (Montauban), Julien Tomas (Montpellier), Régis Lespinas (Montauban), Romain Sola (Agen), Yann David (Bourgoin), Lionel Mazars (Castres), Fabrice Estebanez (Brive), Rémy Grosso (Lyon), Yohan Huget (Agen), Romain Martial (Narbonne), Florian Denos (Bourgoin), Jerome Porical (Perpignan).

France ‘A’ will play Italy ‘A’ on June 12, Romania on June 16 and Scotland ‘A’ – who will be captained by departing Perpignan scrum-half Chris Cusiter – on June 21.