Kelly Brown is confident a once debilitating stammer will have no bearing on his ability to lead the side in this season's Six Nations.

The 31-year-old Saracens flanker still puts himself through a routine of daily early morning breathing exercises in a bid to get on top of the problem.

'I find I don't stammer when I shout, and I tend to shout quite a lot on the pitch,' Brown said. 'I know it's part of me and all of the players know it's something I'm working on.

'It's something I will continue to work on and I work on every single day. I get up in the morning and I do my breathing exercises. But I know if I can do that and I can put in the work, I know that most of the time I'll be in control of my speech.

'In the 2010 Six Nations I was asked if I could do an interview right at the start, and it was so bad that I actually phoned and asked if that interview could never be shown. That was really the final straw, I said, “Right I need to do something about this”. I never wanted my stammer to be an excuse for why I couldn't do something.'

Source: AFP