I made Scots weep

In day two of Jason Leonard's recollections of an amazing England career, a dramatic win north of the border leaves the locals in tears. The prop enjoys another Grand Slam but further afield there are two bruising encounters away to South Africa with vastly different results 33 South Africa 16 Twickenham, 14 November 1992 In their first post-apartheid match with the Springboks, England become the first nation to pass 30 points against South Africa.

21England 33 South Africa 16 Twickenham, 14 November 1992 In their first post-apartheid match with the Springboks, England become the first nation to pass 30 points against South Africa.

Jason Leonard: "They were only just coming back after the years in the wilderness and despite being short of confidence, they showed enough for me to say to some of the other guys: 'They are going to be good very soon.' They won the World Cup three years later! I got to play against Danie Gerber and Naas Botha, two of the greats of South African rugby."

22England 16 France 15 Twickenham, 16 January 1993 England's ninth successive Five Nations win, one match shy of the national record set in the early 1920s.

JL: "There was a Lions tour at the end of the season but no one was talking about that. We kept our record going against the French without reaching any great heights.

Martin Johnson made his debut and took a heavy bang in the game and played for most of the time concussed. I knew, right from the start, Jonno had what it took to be a Test lock and would be around for a few years. I was right."

23Wales 10 England 9 Cardiff Arms Park, 6 February 1993 The unbeaten run stretching back to 1990 in the Five Nations ends in a one-point defeat.

JL: "This is the one where Rory Underwood sauntered back to get a kick through from Emyr Lewis. Everyone was screaming that Ieuan Evans was motoring up behind him he hacked it through for the try. Wales shut up shop and we couldn't do anything else."

24England 26 Scotland 12 Twickenham, 6 March 1993 England keep alive hopes of retaining the Five Nations title with a positive display.

JL: "I had a problem with a tooth and had to go to the dentist 24 hours before the match. I had lost half the tooth to a punch. The dentist pulled the other half out easily because it was dead. I had stitches put in and then Paul Burnell punched me at the first lineout and all this blood came out. He thought it was a peach of a punch but I told him: 'Archie, I have stitches in there mate.' He wasn't too impressed with that."

25Ireland 17 England 3 Lansdowne Road, 20 March 1993 England slump to their heaviest Five Nations defeat of the Leonard era. Even so, two days later he is selected for the Lions tour of New Zealand.

JL: "This was the worst game of the season.

Stuart Barnes had come in and created a great try against the Scots and we tried to play the same over there. I came back to London with Peter Winterbottom and we tried to find out from Besty (Dick Best, the Lions assistant coach) if we were going to New Zealand. It took about 10 increasingly boozy calls before we got a hint that we could start celebrating. But the sickener was that Jeff Probyn wasn't touring."

26England 15 New Zealand 9 Twickenham, 27 November 1993 JL: "This is the match where Brian Moore accused Sean Fitzpatrick, the All Black skipper, of a racist comment about Victor Ubogu.

I was amazed because one of Fitzy's props was Olo Brown - as Maori as they come. Fitzy and Mooro only started talking again at the end of last year.

That's a nice end to the story."

27Scotland 14 England 15 Murrayfield, 5 February 1994 JL: "Jon Callard kicked the last-gasp winning penalty and Gavin Hastings was in tears at the end. The whole of Edinburgh was choked and we saw Scottish fans weeping in the streets as we drove past in the team coach."

28England 12 Ireland 13 Twickenham, 19 February 1994 England lack purpose and disappoint their fans who see them lose at Twickenham in the Five Nations for the first time since 1988.

Thus ends the national side's best home run in the Championship since the 1920s.

JL: "We weren't on fire that day and paid the price. They got a lucky penalty when Simon Geoghegan should have been penalised."

29France 14 England 18 Parc des Princes, 5 March 1994 JL: "They still had a psychological block against us and we played some good rugby.

Our good record against them was to end shortly, but we didn't realise it or we would have really savoured it."

30England 15 Wales 8 Twickenham, 19 March 1994 Geoff Cooke's final match as England manager.

England's 10th-minute try is their first in six Tests.

JL: "I had been with Cookey from my very first cap and he was a great bloke.

He used to see me going around with the older players and would just shake his head at the things I got dragged into! It was a shock to lose him and what he achieved has helped the current set-up."

31South Africa 15 England 32 Pretoria, 4 June 1994 Leonard gets the vote of confidence from new manager Jack Rowell to carry on as loose head. England post their best away performance in a Test against one of the Southern Hemisphere's super powers.

JL: "I told Jack I could not tour because my hamstring was torn. He just said: 'You're going.' Thanks to the miracle work of Dr Terry Crystal and Kevin Murphy, the physio, they got me fit for the Test. Jack told me in the team meeting I was 'a crafty cockney accumulating caps'. He asked me after the game what I thought about his motivational talk and I said it was a tongue twister that was difficult to say three times!

Jack was not impressed and walked off."

32South Africa 27 England 9 Cape Town, 11 June 1994 England crash to their heaviest defeat for three years.

JL: "In the midweek game against Eastern Province, Tim Rodber was sent off. He was finally cleared to play but it was a distraction and affected us.

Johan Le Roux propped for South Africa and was yelling: 'I love it!' all the time.

He got caught at the bottom of a ruck and Mooro and I piled in and Mooro looked down and shouted: 'Do you still love it now?'" 33England 54 Romania 3 Twickenham, 12 November 1994 JL: "Romania still had a big pack but we set out to score lots of points and succeeded."

34England 60 Canada 19 Twickenham, 10 December 1994 England equal their then record score for a match for which full caps were awarded.

JL: "It was the same with Canada and you never get much praise for hitting that sort of total when you are expected to win."

35Ireland 8 England 20 Lansdowne Road, 21 January 1995 JL: "We won this at a canter and we now felt we were a settled team.The babies on the South Africa tour - Ben Clarke, Tim Rodber and Steve Ojomoh were now suddenly key members of as quad that went onto win the Slam."

36England 31 France 10, Twickenham, 4 February 1995 England's best winning margin against France since 1914.

JL: "The squad had something that we had lost in 1993 and 1994, and that was balance.

We were able to pull off these wins because we had this settled feeling and were able to produce commanding performances, including this final one over the French before they found a way of ending our domination. After this, it went all pear shaped against them!"

37Wales 9 England 23 Cardiff Arms Park, 18 February 1995 JL: "Another trip to Cardiff and another win.

I always valued victories down there because they are so passionate and really let you know they don't particularly like us."

38England 24 Scotland 12 Twickenham, 18 March 1995 Passes Probyn's record to become England's most-capped prop.

JL: "The reason this match sticks out in my memory more than the others in this third Grand Slam-winning campaign wasn't because I passed Probyn's record - it was the fact this was the first game in which I had to come off for treatment. Moore's elbow connected with my left eyebrow and I needed stitches and Graham Rowntree came on for his first cap. When I got back to the touchline to get him off the bloody pitch, he kept running away and pretending he couldn't hear. In the end I got fed up shouting: 'Get your arse over here!' at him and just ran on and grabbed him. Probes never says anything about my caps - he just points out he has more tries than me."

39England 24 Argentina 18 Durban, 27 May 1995 The opening match of England's 1995 World Cup campaign in South Africa starts with a hard- fought victory.

JL: "Argentina had a really good front row with Patricio Noriega, Federico Mendez and Matias Corral and it was much closer than people expected. It was played in humid conditions and I spent the match sucking in air. In the dressing room afterwards I lay on the floor and put my a c h i n g l e g s u p against the wall. They scrummaged so strongly it drained me of all my energy. I was too knackered to celebrate the win."

40England 27 Italy 20 Durban, 31 May 1995 After 39 successive England starts at loose head, Leonard switches to tight head for the first time. He is rested for the next match in this World Cup, against Western Samoa, ending Leonard's five-year unbroken stretch in the side.

JL: "I played at tight head to let Rowntree play loose head and I didn't mind it that much.

The nice thing was that it allowed me to come up against Massimo Cuttitta, who was to join Harlequins the next season. He's a lovely guy. What does stick in my memory is playing two games in quick succession and the fatigue I felt in my legs. I was rested for the Samoa game having played in all the matches in the 1991 World Cup and I was peeved at taking a break because they were the only team I hadn't faced at that point."

Jason Leonard was talking to Chris Jones.

Additional reporting: John Griffiths

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