It was always going to be difficult to sustain the trajectory of Raffi Quirke’s meteoric rise to England stardom. Just three months after turning 20, and after just 15 matches as a professional rugby player, he was scoring winning tries for England against world champions South Africa at Twickenham.

What followed was a spell as one of the country’s best scrum halves as Sale Sharks reached the Premiership final, before a rotten succession of injuries to his hamstring, arm, and most recently, his wrist limited him from capitalising on the strong first impression.

However, such was the impact that Quirke made in just two appearances, he’s consistently remained in the England conversation despite his injury woes. The euphoria of that winning try has lived long in many fans’ memories, not least his.

“I’m getting flashbacks on my phone of three years ago”, says Quirke. “I’ve never had a feeling like it, so I’m just chasing it all the time.

“I want to be back in the squad for the Six Nations, that’s a big goal of mine. There’s six and a half weeks until the Six Nations, so it’s being as disciplined as I can, getting the best out of myself and trying to get back starting for Sale.

“Steve [Borthwick] was keeping tabs on me whilst I was injured with my wrist, and I spoke to Richard Wigglesworth a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully I’m still around there, I’ve just got to perform at my best.”

Still aged just 23, Quirke has time on his side, and is confident he can get back in contention provided some due fitness luck comes his way.

“The best ability is availability as AJ MacGinty used to tell me”, says Quirke. “It’s just time in the jersey. Some of the best players in the world take a couple games to get back into it when they’re coming back from injury.”

“It’s tough, I want to come on, make an impact and try get the 9 jersey back, but sometimes, through that, you can put yourself in a worse position because you’re trying to do too much.”

In that regard, Quirke is somewhat a victim of his own success. Sniping nines are seen as gold-dust in this country, the recent international recognition for Alex Mitchell and Harry Randall no doubt a point of frustration for Quirke who debuted in the same year as the two.

Expectations, therefore, are high when he’s on the pitch, breaks are anticipated. It’s an added layer of pressure that can be frustrating when targeting the all-court game that secures international caps.

“It’s tough because you want to show you’re a well-rounded individual, that you’ve got it all”, says Quirke. “Sometimes to prosper it’s a bit of a sacrifice.

“You see people might say ‘Raffi’s not making as many breaks around the breakdown’, but that’s because the game doesn’t need it, it needs more box-kicking, control, pinning teams in corners.

“It’s hard just trying to find the right balance, because sometimes you can play 80 minutes and there be no opportunity to make a break, so you’ve just got to nail your basics. Then there could be a game, say in the first minute someone switches off and there’s an opportunity.”

Nonetheless, with plenty experience of coming back from injury, Quirke is well-versed in how to get into a better headspace. The Chorlton-man is active off the pitch as a budding chef and squad barber and uses his injury/off-season lay-offs to train with Sydney Roosters rugby league players in Australia.

The atmosphere at Sale is a good one too. The squad had their annual Christmas dinner this week, accompanied by an academy singsong and secret Santa – in which one player received a caged budgie – and as a squad went to the UK’s largest sauna this week to unwind.

“When I had my surgery, I was in a spot of bother because I couldn’t use my right wrist at all. I couldn’t chop, flick a pan”, says Quirke.

“Now that I’m cooking again, I’m happy.

“Christmas dinner was fun, the young lads always rip into everyone which was very good craic. Last year Ben Bamber got the budgie, he’s been looking after it all year. This year someone got a budgie again, not really one you want to get!

“It’s a really good place to be, all the boys are loving life at the minute which is really important.

“You have conversations when coaches aren’t around and you’re just chatting about anything, and then your focus starts to focus more towards rugby, and you get a bit more honest conversations out of people, the way they’re feeling and what they’re thinking.

“I feel like I’m going to games with a clear plan in my head of what I need to get done to be in the best position for selection.”

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