Anthony Watson has revealed the role a brutal text from his dad played in his recovery from a career-threatening Achilles injury.

Watson is poised to make his Test comeback in Sunday's World Cup warm-up against Wales at Twickenham having completed three appearances for Bath at the end of last season.

The 25-year-old wing was sidelined for over a year with the Achilles problem sustained during his last appearance for England in March 2018 and he required two operations to restore him to health.

"It was slow progress. The injuries I had before – hamstrings and jaw and stuff like that – got better and better," he said.

"With an Achilles it can go up, down two, up one, up three. It's very variable so it was just dealing with those days when you thought it was all going so smoothly and now it's not going so smoothly.

"It was only painful for four days after the op. After that, you've got two weeks in a cast and those are the worst two weeks because you can't do anything, you're just sat at home doing nothing."

Having been a part of Eddie Jones' World Cup training squad from the start, Watson was told to sit out last month's Bristol camp in order to spend time training with sprint coach Jason Dodoo in Loughborough.

Initially fearing what his absence meant for his Japan 2019 prospects, he came to realise the value of his week away from the main squad.

"At first I was a bit sketchy – not being with the lads was definitely sketchy – but when I had it explained to me why I was going up there and what it was for, I could understand...." Watson said.

"On the back of the week, how I felt coming into the Italy week, I didn't see it right at the start but it was definitely the best thing that could have happened."