SOUTHAMPTON rugby star David Sisi dreams of playing for England at the World Cup and knows what he must do to get there.

It’s been two years since the former Tottonians RFC prodigy was plucked by Bath RFC from London Irish after winning the World Cup with England Under-20s, ending a sensational international age group career that included winning the Six Nations twice.

Now the 22-year-old back-row forward is back at Irish – the club he joined as a 16-year-old from Tots and blazed a trail through their highly thought of academy.

He arrives on a season loan from the Recreation Ground, looking to make a fresh start after first-team opportunities were limited thanks to injury.

Irish have new ownership and more stable investment ahead of this campaign and Sisi, who played on loan at Leeds last term, admits it barely feels like his career has “properly started” yet but his Exiles homecoming has given him fresh drive.

With the Aviva Premiership kick-off just over a month away – with Irish starting at home to Leicester on October 18 – and the Rugby World Cup starting at Twickenham this Friday, when hosts England take on Fiji in the curtain raiser, Sisi feels that he is on the eve of a great turning point in his career.

“Irish is where I want to be,” he said. “It’s been awesome coming back.

“I’ve settled in really quickly.

“There have been a lot of changes and certainly it’s a different club to the one I left, but in a real positive way.

“There’s real ambition at the club now, great new coaches and a lot of new faces and players, so it’s all about this new start for the club and a lot of hard will go in now and has been going in over the last few weeks.

“It’s really exciting the direction the club’s going in.”

He continued: “I’ve had a chat with Bob Casey ( London Irish chief executive) and Glenn Delaney (head of rugby operations), it’s very much about getting some game time under my belt.

“I’ve had some big injuries, which has hindered me as well as not being able to nail down a starting place with that kind of inconsistency in my career so far.

“It’s a fresh start for me. A new club, new coaches, a new way of playing, new players, it seemed to tick all the boxes that I was looking for.

“I’ve been fit now for almost a whole season and I’ve got a good pre-season under my belt and I'm just looking to kick on and get some consistency into my game.

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“I've got to lay down a marker, especially in the Premiership, as to what I’m all about.”

Sisi plans to watch some of the World Cup from the stands but, ultimately, that isn’t where he wants to be and knows that only hard graft will see him on the pitch on the international stage once more.

“As a young player, that is the dream,” he said, when asked if he could play at the next World Cup. “Ultimately that’s the aspiration. You’ve just got to do the work in between that.

“That’s the hard bit.

“But certainly I’m on the right track and I believe I’m in the right place.

“The plans are in place for me to do that, so I think it’s just about me getting out there on the pitch and do what I do and then we’ll just see what happens.”