Red card made me realise what is at stake - Dylan Hartley

England captain Dylan Hartley admitted that his latest red card sanction gave him a "sobering" reality check.

The 30-year-old was sent-off while playing for his club Northampton Saints after he performed a stiff arm-tackle on Leinster's Sean O'Brien during the European Champions Cup encounter between the two teams. It was also his third red card of his career taking the number of suspended weeks to 30 overall.

Also the ban meant that Hartley was heading into the Six Nations tournament without any match practice and head coach Eddie Jones exposed him to a stimulated match last week to prove his fitness.

Even though, Hartley had a backing of RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie and Jones to lead the England team in their Six Nations title defence, the Northampton Saints hooker is wary of another such incident can affect his place in the red rose team.

"It is sobering," said Hartley who was speaking for the first time since the incident.

"You realise what is going on and what is at stake. I understood the position that I had put myself and the team in.

"To be sat back within the team is a privileged position and one I don't take for granted. I've got my head down and all I can do is repay that faith with how I play.

"Obviously you reflect on things when things like that happen. This is a privileged position to be in, not just to be sat here as captain, but to be involved with the team.

"I've jeopardised that, put the team and myself in a sticky situation and I've had a clear directive from Eddie and the staff of what they expect."

Hartley also insisted that he had worked hard on his tackle technique with England defence coach Paul Gustard and is confident that such an incident will never repeat again.

"I'm confident it won't happen again because I've worked hard on my tackle technique with (defence coach) Paul Gustard and some of the other staff," he said.

"It is something that I needed to clean up and I've given myself a good chance of not having that same issue again. But it is an ongoing thing - it is something I have to keep working on. The tackle was a technical issue for me."