I thought Millfield might be a step too far for a state school boy like myself, so I opted for Colston's It was the right move, I think. The rugby tuition was superb there, and when we came to play Millfield we beat them."A place in the Bath academy was his for the taking, and he took it. He played his first game of senior rugby as a teenager for the club's second-string, travelling to Orrell in the company of a couple of old front-row lags, Dave Hilton and Victor Ubogu, who promptly made him feel even smaller than his vital statistics suggested. "The two of them kept arguing about who would be responsible for the tap signal, which tells the scrum-half when to feed the ball at the set-piece," he said. "I remember thinking to myself: 'Hey, that's my job.' It was a wind-up, of course; they were like a comedy double-act.

But what can you do? They were internationals - I was a nobody."As his efforts to become a somebody at the club were obstructed by the sheer quality of the hookers in front of him, he wondered whether he might be obliged to leave the Rec for the sake of his career. "I felt I was making some progress as a player, but there were times when I felt short of rugby," he admitted. "There was a point some seasons ago when second-team rugby seemed to be dying a death, and with the senior places tied up, I was in danger of becoming a professional trainer rather than a professional player, a situation that gets on your nerves after a while I'm glad I sat it out, though Michael Foley arrived and helped make me what I am. I now find it difficult to imagine playing anywhere else."Mears is rarely outplayed these days. Part of his ascent up the ladder is due to the ruthless expertise of the Bath tight unit as a whole; certainly, it must be a joyous experience playing alongside a forward like Grewcock, whose performances of late have been little short of stellar.

It is also a fact that English rugby is in a phase of producing relatively small hookers - Chuter, Andy Titterrell of Sale, Matt Cairns of Saracens - and that Mears is currently the most potent of them. If there were three humungous Thompsons rather than one, the Bath man might now be fourth in the pecking order. But there is one, and one only.Against Samoa, the newcomer looked the part. "I was whistled for a crooked throw at my first line-out, which was a bit embarrassing to say the least, but I felt a lot better once I had the ball in my hands," he said. "The Samoans enjoy a tackle, of course, and it wasn't long before I got whacked. But while international rugby is a yard or so quicker, the hits were pretty much what I'd experienced in the Premiership It was a wonderful experience. We didn't turn in a pretty performance, but we put more points on them than any England side had managed previously, so some things must have been right."Will he hack it against the big boys, though? The Springboks? The Pumas? France? "As I say, I love a challenge," he replied "The next game is Wales, and I'd love to be a part of it.

I watched last year's Six Nations as an outsider and was transfixed by it. If I'm given an opportunity this time, it will be a thousand times better.". If young Andrew Murray is ever enshrined as one of the great legends of world tennis - and the sight of Sir Sean Connery leaping from his seat in paroxysms of Scottish pride when the boy made his first minor splash at Wimbledon is no more than a vaguely embarrassing memory - perhaps he will experience a flicker of gratitude. Who knows, he may just remember fondly the touching concern of most of the British nation when he was so unceremoniously cuffed out of the Australian Open..