Joe Marler 'gutted' at not getting Lions email as he reveals regrets over how he handled 2017 tour

England prop Joe Marler says he was a "bit gutted" to discover that he was not a recipient of the "save the date" email sent to players ahead of this summer's Lions tour to South Africa.

Marler, who toured New Zealand under Warren Gatland in 2017, has been one of the Premiership's form looseheads this season, spearheading Harlequins' charge from the bottom half of the league table to contending for the top four.

"I didn’t get an email," Marler, 30, said. "Bit gutted, I’m not surprised, but I would have loved to have gone. I’d loved to have gone with a different approach to it than I did in 2017.

"I remember sitting down and talking to (hooker) Rory Best on that tour. He said he regretted the way he’d approached 2013 and the memories he had of it. It was pretty obvious from the start that he wasn’t going to make the Test team and he let those feelings become bitter and cloud his enjoyment of the whole experience. And he wanted to make sure that in 2017 the midweekers didn’t make the same mistake that he did.

"And there was part of that for me in 2017. It was pretty obvious from the start that I wasn’t going to get a sniff of the Tests, and I was a bit of a s--- at times. I regret having those feelings towards it. I still had an unbelievable experience and friends I made for life. But I’d have liked to have gone back this time around and tried to help out in that regard."

Marler pulled out of England's 2021 Six Nations campaign due to reservations about the bubble environment and leaving his young family for two months. Given that the Lions' trip this summer to face the world champions will also incorporate a similar Covid bubble, the expectation was that Marler, who has been public in his battle with mental-health problems, would abstain from touring. While it would have been an awkward conversation to be had with his wife, Daisy, the country's improved Covid outlook changed things for the loosehead.

“It would have been a very tough conversation with my wife, which has been avoided having not got the email," Marler adds. "But it would have been tough. I pulled out of the England bubble because it wasn’t the right thing for my family. It would have been tough for the nine weeks as well.

"But the world is slightly different to where it was in January, with hard lockdowns, and where my wife was at the time. That’s changed slightly. If I got an email or a phone call, or if I had been picked, I would still have to have a conversation with Daisy, 'I’ve been picked for the lions, it’s a nine-week bubble and you know how much I love rugby'. She might have turned around and said, 'We’re in a better space now'. I hazard a guess that she would have turned around and said, 'Are you taking the p---?' Luckily I didn’t have to have that conversation."

In the unique circumstances of a trimmed Lions squad of just 36 players, all of whom will have to negotiate the difficulties of a bio-bubble, did Marler's public declining of England's Six Nations quarantine make up Gatland's mind for him? "It may have," Marler says.

"It’s a pretty tight bubble, nine weeks away, it’s already tough enough as it is, if you were Warren Gatland, would you go, 'Do I need someone who has form of struggling mentally and away from home? Is that the right person to have on that tour? Probably not'.

"Maybe? Who knows? Maybe it’s just that there are better players than me. There are pretty good players in the loosehead position before having to consider someone who hasn’t played international rugby for 12 months and has got form of not being that good at being away from home."