I remember Newcastle's 1998 Premiership triumph - full of cheers... and plenty of beers

Today’s Premiership final will get me thinking of Newcastle, 1998 and all that. It was the year we won the title having coming straight up from the second division.

It was such a great time. Sir John Hall, the owner, travelled on the bus with us a few times that season. One time, we had a really good win at Bath and he made the bus stop at Tesco. We all went in, got four trolleys full of booze and he put it all on his credit card. We had a ball the rest of the way back up.

Jonny Wilkinson was an integral part of that side, of course. He never really came out too much with us. It is quite annoying really that I have no dirt on him. His idea of a perfect day out was going to the beach to play with a frisbee and a bean bag, whereas ours was sitting in a beer garden getting drunk as skunks.

His dedication to rugby was just amazing. If I had been Jonny, things would have been different. I would have had the Ferrari, the Lamborghini and the Hollywood life, but that was not Jonny. He is the most down-to-earth person and remains a gentleman to this day. He was one of the first to get in touch to say, “Whatever you need, just let me know.”

Although part of me is disappointed that Newcastle did not make today’s final, I have to say that it is only fitting that the two best teams, Exeter and Saracens, from the regular season are contesting it. It just would not have been right if Newcastle, who finished 22 points below Exeter, had won at Sandy Park last week.

Today, Premiership Rugby will be doing loads to highlight the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. Sadly, I cannot be there in person: instead, I will be represented by Jonny, Rob Andrew – another former Newcastle team-mate – and Lawrence Dallaglio, who I toured with on the 1997 Lions series.

One of the drawbacks of so many people wanting to help you is that your diary gets full pretty quickly and once I make a commitment, I am loathe to break it.

I have recorded a few messages that will be shown on the screen today. They were recorded the night after the Rugby Players’ Association awards, in which there were quite a few pints involved, so if I look in a bad way it is more because of that rather than the Motor Neurone Disease.