In this first extract from his new book, Heart and Soul, Trevor Brennanexplains how his Ireland international career came to an abrupt and unexpected end - and how it still hurts.

I'm not usually one of the first out of the showers, and I wish I hadn't been at Twickenham in February 2000. Eddie O'Sullivan had arrived as assistant coach after the 1999 World Cup, and the bulk of the side was retained for that Six Nations opener. We were beaten 50-18.

Although I'd only been a second-half replacement along with Mick Galwey and Girvan Dempsey, John Redmond asked me and a few other players to do the post-match press conferences. I should have said no, in hindsight, but John insisted that I do it as no one else was volunteering. How do you answer a barrage of questions from journalists when you've shipped 50 points? "We were unlucky?"

We had talked all week about being men, about standing up to be counted, about wrapping up ball and man in the tackle. But on the day, we had done none of it. I spoke honestly and from the heart. "They (England) just offloaded in the tackle with ease. I think we should have tried to wrap man and ball up. We weren't 100 per cent committed in the tackle, and when you're not 100 per cent committed in the tackle it just makes it easier for the man to offload.

"What fellas said, the commitment they'd give, during the week and in the dressingroom before, it just didn't seem to be carried out on to the pitch, which was disappointing really."

I also said that the decision to kick for the posts or the corner when we were already well beaten was disheartening. "If we'd just tapped and put it through hands and put them under the same pressure that they put us under in the first half. I think that's the way forward really. Not to slow things down. I can't see any point in going for three points when you're 30-40 down with 20 minutes to go."

If I was a coach, or a captain, of any team that would be the last thing I'd be telling my players to do. Something I've learned even more since coming to Toulouse.

Kieron Dawson was just as candid. "We were awful. Our defence was all over the shop. We were at sixes and sevens half the time. Our tackling was substandard. Very poor in fact. Obviously, you're not going to do much with these flaws."

All of that was true too, and the pundits rubbished our performance. I was widely quoted in the next day's papers. One player took me aside and suggested that speaking in such a manner might jeopardise my selection prospects, and that I really shouldn't be so candid.

Kieron remained in the team, but, whether it was coincidental or not, I wasn't picked for the next game at home to Scotland. Ireland made five changes to the starting line-up. Even though I'd been on the bench in Twickenham, I was dropped from the 22. Why drop someone from the bench? I could never quite figure that one out. It doesn't make sense.

Anyone will tell you that if a player is dropped, it should be the one who started, not the one who came off the bench. What happened was, in my view, totally wrong. They dropped a player who came on for the last 32 minutes when the score was already 32-3, made a massive hit on Lawrence Dallaglio, gave away no penalties, and could hardly be blamed for Ireland losing by 50-18.

Changes had to be made after Twickenham. But if anything, myself, Gaillimh and Girvan had made a positive impact from the bench. To be honest, I thought I had a good chance of being promoted. But they brought in five new caps; Peter Stringer, Ronan O'Gara, Shane Horgan, John Hayes and Simon Easterby. And they recalled Gaillimh, Girvan Dempsey and Denis Hickie.

I rang Donal Lenihan. He told me to train with the A squad, who were preparing to play Scotland in Donnybrook. "How are you Trev? Good to see you," said A coach Declan Kidney, greeting me warmly. Before adding, "I'm afraid you're not playing."

I thought to myself: "This is going from bad to worse."

In fact, I wasn't included in any of the four remaining A games. Even on the bench. It looked like they were making a point. My name vanished off the radar. I can't help but think this was at least partly because of what I had said to the press.

My Test career was more or less over.

I wasn't picked for Ireland for a year and eight months. My head was in the shed again. As much as I wanted to play for my country, this whole episode left me disillusioned. As well as vanishing from the radar for the rest of that season (even for the As), I wasn't included in the 28-man squad to tour the Americas, I was overlooked the following autumn against Japan, the 2001 Six Nations and even the Romanian match in June, when Ireland were short six Lions.

I owe my last recall to the foot-and-mouth epidemic (which meant rearranged matches the following September and October), a lousy Irish performance in a 32-10 defeat to Scotland and Gary Longwell breaking his finger. Desperate times call for desperate measures!

I was playing out of my skin for Mary's and Leinster, and I suppose that might have had something to do with my brief recall. Matt Williams had been using me as a secondrow as well as a backrow.

After one game in Donnybrook, Gatty came up to me and said: "Well played Trev. Keep it up and I might have a place in the World Cup squad for you."

"Is that all you've got for me?" I said, being a bit of a smart ass.

By then I didn't give a toss about them. I reckoned I had nothing to lose. I was enjoying my rugby, but no more was I going to be the little doggy. Gatty's congratulations meant little to me at the time. I couldn't care if he thought I was Zinzan Brooke re-incarnated. But one day soon after, in my parents' house, I got a call out of the blue from Irish manager Brian O'Brien.

"How are ye going kid?"

"Alright thanks. Who's this?" I asked, not recognising the accent.

"Brian O'Brien."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Brian O'Brien - Ireland."

Brian O'Brien - Ireland, who the hell is Brian O'Brien, I thought to myself. Donal Lenihan had departed to manage the Lions the previous summer. As for Ireland, it had been nearly two years since I'd played for them. I knew Brian to see, obviously, but it just hadn't registered.

"Kid, listen. The big man from Ulster had an accident today."

"Who? What big man?" I asked.

"Gary Longwell."

The penny dropped.

"What do you want me to do?" I said, now realising who it was.

"Ah, we need you to come out here."

"For what? Do you want me to hold bags?" I said. I'd been asked along to the odd session here and there, when that's what I'd mostly done.

"Nah kid, this looks like the big one. Gatty wants you on board and on the bench."

This was the Tuesday or Wednesday before Ireland played Wales in the Millennium Stadium, in the second of the re-arranged matches. It was horrible arriving in the Glenview Hotel, Wicklow that evening. I drove up the M50 through rush hour traffic and arrived as the squad were having dinner. I checked in, put my stuff in the room and went down to join them. I shook hands with some of the lads I hadn't spoken to in over a year and said hello to the management, letting on I was delighted to be there.

"Get yourself a bit of grub and settle in there, kid."

They carried on eating, so I grabbed a plate of food and looked around for an empty seat, before going back to my room and unpacking. I went to training the next morning. Throughout the week there was no one-on-one communication with any of the management to explain why I'd been recalled. I didn't feel a part of it at all. Then one day I asked Brian if I was entitled to tickets for the game.

"Oh yes you are, kid. How many do you want?"

I asked for two. But it was all last-minute stuff, the hotels were booked up and nobody from my family could make it over. The night before the game, I recall walking around Cardiff on my own. No one really recognised me apart from two young Irish lads standing outside a pub asking if anybody had tickets. I went back to them.

"Have you no tickets for the game lads?"

"No," they said. "Here you go lads. Here's two stand tickets for you."

"My da is inside, will you wait here while I tell him?" said one of them. His father came out and asked me to come in and say hello. He was delighted that I'd given the tickets to the lads and insisted on buying me a drink. I had a coke with them and made my way back to the hotel.

The pressure on both teams to win was huge. And it showed. I came on in the 58th minute for Mick Galwey, alongside Malcolm O'Kelly in the secondrow. I was comfortable playing with Mal. We'd played together at Mary's and Leinster. Ireland were leading 15-6 at that point. We went on to win 36-6 with three tries in the last six minutes. Mal called for the first of the Welsh restarts after I came on, but I shouted: "Mal, leave it."

I did the same with the next one. It felt good to be back in the zone. For the next game against England I was retained on the bench. They were going for the Grand Slam. On the morning of the match we walked to Lansdowne Road from the Berkeley Court and practiced our lineouts on the back pitch behind the East Stand. They went really crisply. There was no confusion over the calls. Hardly a ball was put down.

On our way back to the hotel I remember Gatty saying to me: "It feels good, doesn't it?"

"I don't know what it is Gatty. But there's something in the air. I have a good feeling about today."

"So do I," he agreed. "I have that feeling too."

England used the same calls as the Lions, and as Mal knew them all, we cleaned out their lineouts. Myself and the Warrior, Emmet Byrne, came on in the 67th minute, with me replacing Gaillimh again to play alongside Mal. I thought I'd made a good impression. I put in a big hit on Jonny Wilkinson, and made a tap tackle on Austin Healey. I was happy, not least because we beat them. We didn't beat England too often in those days, and had lost to them six times in a row before that game.

Although much was made of Martin Johnson and Lawrence Dallaglio being injured, that was still a very good English team; Greenwood, Catt, Wilkinson, Dawson, Leonard, White, Shaw, Grewcock, Corry, Back, Hill

. . . all of whom would go on to win the World Cup.

The Lansdowne Road crowd were incredible that day and it was marvellous to be a part of it. The day after the English game we went clay pigeon shooting, had a couple of pints in Aughrim, and returned to the Glenview.

I was wrecked after the night before, but Gatty said that it was obligatory for everyone to come for a meal in a restaurant in Bray. "You'll enjoy it. It'll be a good night."

I sat at the dinner table with Gatty to my right and Rala (Paddy O'Reilly, the Irish bagman) to my left.

"Is he here yet?" Gatty asked Rala across me.

"Not yet," said Rala.

I interrupted them. "Is who here yet?"

"Ah there's a bit of music organised for the boys," Gatty said. "Say nothing to the lads."

"Is it a band?"

"Kind of," he said.

"What kind of music is it?" I asked him. "A bit of traditional music."

"Oh I love the old bit of traditional Gatty," I said.

"I know you do, Trevor."

After a lovely meal, we went downstairs to the bar below the restaurant and in walked Christy Moore. Gatty knew I loved Christy. I was like a kid in a sweet shop. At first there were only another 20 people in the bar, but after a flurry of texts, by the time Christy was into his third song, there was more like 200. We were right at the front.

As I'd been singing along, he asked me to join him. So I belted out An Ordinary Man with him and then we presented him with a signed, framed Irish jersey. I was delighted to sing with him and I took off my Irish polo top to give to him. One of the nights of my life. I have an autographed, framed picture of the two of us on my wall back home in Castelginest.

Two weeks later, I was on the bench again for the match against Samoa. Myself and Simon Easterby came on for Eric Miller and Anthony Foley at half-time, and we won 35-8.

To be honest, the night was more memorable than the match. I'd been in the bar having a few drinks with my family, and was a little late for the dinner. There were no seats left except at a table with six or seven Samoans. I was lucky to have a long chat with their coach, Michael Jones, one of the legends of the game dating back to my New Zealand trip in '93. I told him of my time there, and we exchanged a few stories.

Normally, the post-match dinner is a staid affair, but the Samoans walked to the front of the room, took off their jackets and shirts, and put on a show of songs and war dances. I played drinking games with the seven Samoans, and traded songs. It was a really relaxed night. Little did I know that I'd never play for Ireland again. Or that I'd never be in that Berkeley Court function room again.

Maybe I was naïve, but I truly expected things were going to kick off for me from there. When we played New Zealand the following week, I wasn't even given a ticket.

I fulfilled a speaking engagement on the day for some sponsor and asked him: "Would there be any chance of a ticket?"

"You need a ticket?" yer man said, shocked.

I'm sure I could have acquired one from the union, but I didn't want to ask. Ireland played superbly. Miller scored a brilliant try and at half-time. I said: "Jaysus, Ireland are going to beat the All Blacks today."

The All Blacks, though, were awesome in the last half-hour and won 40-29. If Ireland had won that day, Gatty wouldn't have got the heave and I'd probably have earned a few more caps. But the defeat to the All Blacks gave them their excuse. Gatty's cards were probably marked after the Murrayfield defeat.

Perhaps my cards were always marked. Fellas can get 13 or more caps in a season, but I earned my 13 over a three-year period. When I think of all the different teams I've played with, in many ways the least enjoyable were with Ireland. With Ireland, players come together from different provinces and clubs, and I never felt entirely comfortable in that set-up. I never felt it was long-term. It always felt short-term.

The last three caps were especially bad. I was delighted to get them, but I hated them in some ways. When I was recalled for that Welsh game, after 20 months out of the loop, I'd been told to get some grub . . . and that was it. I played some good rugby for Ireland.

My best and only decent run of starts were the four games against Australia in Perth, the World Cup warm-up match against Australia and the two World Cup games against the USA and Australia. The fight with Kefu - and the citing that followed - was one of only two bad experiences I had with Ireland; the other was the 10-9 defeat to France in '99.

But it's worth stressing that I never picked up either a red, or even a yellow card, playing with Ireland. My best games were probably against Italy, in my first start, and against Argentina and the USA, when Woody scored his four tries. I think it was an achievement merely to play for Ireland, given where I came from. It always will be. But I also believe I should have won at least 20 caps more. At the absolute minimum.

If you go through the list of 20 or so players who've since played for Ireland in the secondrow - or at number six, or combining the two - ahead of me, some are undoubtedly class acts. But you can't convince me that all of them were head and shoulders above me. And that's not including all those who've played for Ireland A.

Many of them were playing on losing Celtic League and Heineken Cup teams

Maybe I wasn't forgiven for being unavailable to tour New Zealand in 2002 when I needed a shoulder operation before joining Toulouse. I wasn't included as one of the 37 players used on the summer tour to Australia, Tonga and Samoa in the summer of 2003. I believe I was better than some of them, and that I should have been in the World Cup squad in 2003.

In my second year with Toulouse, we reached another European Cup final. But I was completely overlooked by the Irish management all season - even for A squads. And so on it went. I wasn't even picked for a tour to Japan in 2005, when Ireland had 10 or more players with the Lions. I didn't even make the Churchill Cup.

Surely there was an argument, on a horses for courses basis, for picking a player in form playing on a successful team?

In three years we reached three European Cup finals. I was on the bench for the first game, against London Irish, and then started every other European game in those three years. We were twice champions of Europe, and made the semi-finals or final of the French Championship every year. Can anyone tell me I wasn't good enough to go to Tonga and Samoa, or Japan. Or even the Churchill Cup?

I believe it was decided that my face didn't fit. Who knows. I don't. No one has ever told me. It still rankles after all these years.

Trevor Brennan: Heart and Soul, with Gerry Thornley, is published by Red Rock Press (16.99) and is available countrywide from this week.