The former England international has been diagnosed with MND

Lewis Moody has opened up on the difficulty of telling his children about his motor neurone disease (MND) diagnosis.

The former England rugby captain revealed he had been diagnosed with the muscle-wasting disease last year after previously noticing weakness in his shoulder during a gym session.

In an emotional appearance on the High Performance podcast with Jake Humphrey, Moody recalled in vivid detail the moment he decided to tell his sons Dylan and Ethan about his diagnosis.

He said: “As soon as we found out I said to Annie, ‘I’m going to tell the boys as soon as we get back.’ We talked about it in the car.

"I can't really remember it. It was a bit of a haze as you can imagine.

"I just walked in and sat down with [Dylan] and said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you. It’s not going to be easy to hear.’ That was it. I just told him.

“It’s horrible telling your kids that. Knowing as a parent you’ve brought this disappointment and sadness."

A visibly emotional Moody then added after a short pause: "Telling your kids is hard. You don’t ever want to feel like that.

"But as soon as you've told them, you can then move forward and we can all start learning a little bit more about the disease.

“It doesn’t mean you’re going to die immediately. We can look into drugs, we can look into trials. Prior to that, you can’t do anything because you don’t know what’s wrong.

"We are just going to have a great time and we are seeking to do that as often as possible.

"We will laugh. We will live. We will love.

The promise made by his wife

"I choose to live a positive and hopeful life.

"I just don't see the point in being any other way.

"There's no sitting back and getting miserable. Sitting in my house and 'woe is me'.

"I've never been like that. Life has presented opportunities for me to prove that I can overcome them."

Moody also spoke of the support he has received his wife Annie, who has promised to stick by his side and care for him when he's no longer able to speak or move.

The former British and Irish Lion said: “She said she’d be there no matter what.”

Moody has previously refused to blame rugby for his diagnosis, despite several other players similarly suffering from the disease.

Doddie Weir, Rob Burrow, and fellow former Tiger Ed Slater are just some of the players from both rugby codes to have been diagnosed in recent years.

In an interview for the BBC's documentary 'How Safe is Rugby?, he told former team-mate Ben Youngs: “I think I was acutely aware of the risks that come with injury and concussion, but I was happy that the reward and the joy of playing the sport far outweighed any of those.

“I enjoyed what I did so much that I was prepared to put up with that, and I would do it again. I loved it… I absolutely loved it.”