Sheridan made his last Test appearance for the British & Irish Lions last summer © Getty Images

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Players/Officials: Steve Borthwick | Martin Johnson | Andrew Sheridan

Tournaments/Tours: England tour

Teams: England | Sale Sharks

England prop Andrew Sheridan has ruled himself out for this summer's tour of Australia and New Zealand.

The Sale loose-head suffered a severe shoulder dislocation in his club's Heineken Cup clash with Cardiff Blues back in October and was expected to miss the rest of the season. But the Edgeley Park club were buoyed by Sheridan's recovery and despite having missed the Six Nations they had hoped he would return to bolster their fight for Guinness Premiership survival.

However, the 30-year-old has moved to quash any talk of an early comeback, saying he wants to ensure his recovery is complete before he plays again. "Hopefully I'm on target to be fit and playing pre-season games," he told the Daily Mail. "I wasn't expecting to play again this season. Everyone agreed that I would have to be very methodical with my rehab. England are aware how serious a shoulder operation it was.

"It was a four-hour operation on the left shoulder - the one I dislocated. 'There was a lot of old damage in there too which had built up over years. I had the right one done three weeks after and now it feels like I've got new shoulders. It has been a slow process since the operations but it wasn't something I wanted to risk by rushing. You don't want to say your career would be finished, but if I came back too early and re-injured my shoulder it would be extremely hard to come back from that again.'

Sheridan, who has made just five appearances for the Sharks this season, won the last of his 32 England caps against Scotland in the 2009 Six Nations and made his last Test appearance for the British & Irish Lions against South Africa last summer.