Her three years in charge saw England capture the RBS 6 Nations title three times, including two clean sweeps, and Spencer revealed it was an emotional decision to pass the baton on.

“I’m quite enjoying it,” said Spencer. “I loved being England captain - it was a fantastic honour and I would do it all again.

“It was a tough decision to hand that captaincy down but I’m really enjoying being a member of the squad and just getting out there and playing.”

“It was completely my own decision - I spent a long time thinking about it. When I told the coaches, I was really struggling to hold the tears back. It’s a massive thing and I voluntarily gave it up.

“I’m getting on a bit now - I’m not getting any younger. I loved the three years as captain but we’re not professional and have got full time jobs - and being captain is an extra responsibility so I just wanted to get back to just playing. It just felt the right thing to do.

“At training if people rock up a bit late, I’m like why are they late – what are they doing? It’s difficult to switch off from that. I’m one of the senior players now.

“I’ve still got a presence about me and I think players still listen to me. But now I’ll go into meetings and sit at the back - just like I used to.”

Darlington Mowden Park’s Katy Mclean was chosen as Spencer’s successor and the transition has so far been seamless with three successive victories.

And Spencer revealed Mclean has adapted to her new responsibilities like a duck to water.

She said: “She is a natural leader on the pitch. She’s taken it on really well. She is really mature and is a really composed person.

“I’ve had a few little chats with her and have said I’ll be there as much or as little as she wants me to. I don’t want to be breathing down her neck - she’s been chosen to be the captain for the person that she is, and needs to be that person and not anything else.”

“Losing to NZ was really disappointing but we just wanted to get back on the pitch and keep improving, so it was really nice to get back into the Six Nations and get back into winning ways.

“Things will change slightly but we’ve had a very successful team so we shouldn’t try and change too much through a knee-jerk reaction” But we need to be playing tougher opposition more often – games like France are brilliant for us.”

“We want to win this tournament; we want to win another Grand Slam. It doesn’t matter what is behind us, it’s what is in front of us. The fact that we’ve won it for the last few years, doesn’t take anything away from this year.”