My Sporting Life is The i Paper’s look behind the curtain at what drives sports stars to greatness. Chris Robshaw was made England captain when he had only won a single international cap, but went on to represent his country 66 times while also playing 300 games for club side Harlequins. After retiring, he featured on hit show Strictly Come Dancing, only the fifth England rugby international to do so. He came 13th.

I cried when our dog died

Rico was 14. My wife Camilla was away and I had to take him to the vet to be put down back in August.

He meant a lot to us. He had been with us since 2012. He was an Affenpinscher, a lovely little black terrier, and he looked a bit like an Ewok.

My kids are five and two, and the five-year-old enjoys telling everyone he’s gone to heaven – I think it’s a bit of a novelty. The two-year-old is just asking what dog we’re getting next! At some point we’ll get another one, but not yet.

My wife doesn’t think Dan Cole is funny – but I do!

My best mate? I always roomed with Dan Cole. I know he’s got his podcast now so people are starting to see it, but we knew he was always a very dry and witty guy. Very funny, very good one-liners.

Once he’s confident with you, being in the room with him and getting to share that time was pretty special. We actually had a road trip recently from north of Bordeaux down to Bilbao for the European Champions Cup final, so me, him, and Ben Youngs shared some good catching up, red wine, and telling stories.

Unless he’s warm with you, everyone just thinks, ‘Oh, who’s this grouchy guy?’. Even my wife was like, ‘Is he actually funny? Because I don’t see it.’

The worst thing about captaincy is missing out on time with your friends

I captained Quins at 23 and England at 25, in only my second cap. I definitely learned a lot on the job.

I remember the first time I went back into the England squad not as a captain, as a player. It was the first time I’d actually gone to the team room and played Fifa with the boys. And it sounds silly, but as a captain, unfortunately, you do have to take yourself away from it a little bit because some of my good friends were getting dropped, and I would know before them. You can’t say anything, of course, and then you have to have tough conversations.

It definitely put pressure on friendships, because we were a young group growing up together, playing together, but you do pull away a little bit. You’ll probably see most captains do that.

I got my team-mate’s name wrong in the royal line-up

My first game as captain was Murrayfield, away. So we had Princess Anne coming down to meet the teams and as captain you have to introduce everyone. You don’t call anyone by their full name in rugby, so you have to remember people’s proper name.

We had a player called Lee Dickson in the England squad, but I played club rugby with his brother Karl Dickson, so I accidentally say, “Oh, here’s Karl Dickson.” Obviously, you’re nervous, there’s a million things going on in your head, and you’re just trying not to call them by their stupid nickname!

Prince Harry was a regular in the England camp

Prince Harry is obviously a big, big rugby man. He would come in and be around training, and he just loved to be around the place, mixing it with the players. He was who he was, but he was a very normal guy in that environment.

I remember we were having a leadership meeting. We had lost our first game in the Six Nations, and that’s crunch time because you can’t win a Grand Slam.

On Monday morning, it was me coming in with the leadership group of Owen Farrell, Brad Barritt, Dylan Hartley, all the coaches – and Prince Harry just sitting in the corner while we were trying to work out how to get ourselves out of a hole. He knew to keep quiet though!

I barely slept before my Strictly debut

Looking back, I am amazed I managed to get on that dance floor, considering I’ve never danced, and all my friends take the mick out of me for my dancing.

I loved it but I was so nervous the first and second week. I barely slept the night before. Then the third and fourth week, I couldn’t wait to do it. My wife said it was the most energised I’d been since I retired.

I loved the training. My partner was great: Nadiya [Bychkova] was so helpful in improving me. Anyone who knows me literally couldn’t believe in my ability.

The scar of 2015 World Cup exit will never heal

That hurt. It took me a long, long time to come out the other side. If I’m honest, it’s a scar I’ll always wear, that World Cup. They were some of my proudest moments in an England shirt, leading an English side in a home World Cup, the opening ceremonies. And two weeks later, being out: it doesn’t get much deeper and darker than that.

It’s something I’ll try to help others with now when I see other players going through a tough time because it’s one that I believe that unless you’ve been through it, it’s hard to really know what that situation is like. Being on the front and back of the paper and being criticised by X, Y, and Z. As nice as my friends and my family all were, they didn’t really know what it was like.

I remember the day after I woke up to an email from [former All Blacks captain] Sean Fitzpatrick. And he said, “Look, nothing anyone can do or say at this point is going to make you feel better, but the sun will come up again. It might not be tomorrow. It might not be next week. It might not even be next month, but it will come up again, and you will be okay.”

Rugby helped me deal with my father’s death

My wife and I set up the Kerslake Robshaw Foundation to empower and support young people through music and sport. Sport is so much more than just being a professional athlete. And for me in particular, when my father died as a kid, it gave me confidence. It allowed me to be disciplined, and most importantly, it gave me a belonging.

It is nice to go to the top end and all that. But there are so many different benefits for sport and music. It should be for everyone. It shouldn’t be a privilege. It shouldn’t be a luxury to be able to go play sport. But unfortunately, in this country, it is becoming that.

Chris Robshaw is co-founder of the Kerslake Robshaw Foundation, a grant-making charity that funds grassroots organisations across the UK using music and sport as powerful pathways to confidence, belonging and opportunity for young people.