Student Sam hoping to broaden horizons over the summer
SAM Underhill was at the Principality Stadium on Wednesday evening, one of many enthusiastic students watching Cardiff see off old rivals Swansea in the annual Varsity showdown.
But that is where the similarities end for the 20-year-old and his mates.
Last weekend Underhill was treading the same turf, taking on some of the greats of world rugby as the Ospreys crashed out of the European Challenge Cup at the hands of Stade Francais.
Today, the back-rower is locking horns with Guinness Pro12 leaders Leinster in Swansea. And while many of his peers will be heading off this summer in search of post-exam sunshine, the former England Under-18s skipper is hoping his travels take him to South America with Eddie Jones’s Six Nations winners.
The demands of full-time professional rugby has meant Underhill’s studies have become part-time at Cardiff, as they will when he moves to play in the Aviva Premiership with Bath in the summer – he is also hoping to transfer to Bath Uni.
“That’s the plan at the moment,” he said.
“Uni life has been good to me, it has given me something outside of rugby, but it is a difficult balance, the biggest part comes down to organisation and finding something that works for you.
“Full-time university doesn’t work for everyone – it hasn’t worked for me because I have started studying parttime.
“But I am definitely an advocate of studying in some degree.
“I had an open-minded approach, I wanted to get the balance right between studying and playing rugby and I think I have done that.”
Underhill will be leaving the Ospreys with a year still remaining on his initial contract.
That decision came as no surprise to anyone at the Liberty as the Gloucester Academy product pursues his ambition to pull on the red rose at senior level.
“It was a difficult decision, but ultimately I am English. I will be living less than a hour away from home, my family is there,” he admitted.
“If I was Welsh, if I lived in Swansea, then staying with the Ospreys would have been the easiest decision in the world. “As it happens, it wasn’t.” England coach Eddie Jones was in the crowd to watch Underhill at the Principality Stadium last Sunday, adding more fuel to speculation that he will part of Jones’s tour party to take on the Pumas.
“I heard the crowd, I didn’t know he was going to be there.
“It was nice that he got a warm reception, eh?” smiled Underhill, referring to the round of boos that greeted Jones appearing on the big screen at Cardiff’s Cathedral of Rugby.
“I am eligible (for England) this summer so Argentina is something I would aspire to.
“If it happens, great, if it doesn’t I will be in pre-season at Bath and working hard just like everyone else to get better for the next season.”
Before then, Underhill will feel there is unfinished business at the Ospreys, who face a pivotal match in their season when they take on the Dubliners in Swansea.
Hugely disappointing defeats to Treviso and Stade has threatened to derail a season that had enjoyed relatively untroubled progress up until then.
But Underhill insists that despite the lingering disappointment that has remained following Sunday’s 25-21 loss to the Parisians, nobody has been searching for the panic button at the region’s training base at Llandarcy this week.
“It has been a pretty disappointing couple of weeks, opportunities went missing out there (against Stade) which was the big negative for us,” he added.
“Obviously, we are deflated and bitterly disappointed with how it went, but the positive side is that we are largely in control of the things that went wrong and hopefully it won’t be too difficult to fix.
“We have got a strong Leinster side coming down, it will be a good test of where we are.
“We need to be more clinical, the first 90 per cent is there, just look at the stats from last weekend, they were all in our favour, I think it is case of being clinical and more accurate.
“It is not about reinventing the wheel.
“You always get blips in seasons and this is a test of character for us now.
“For us a group it is time to come together and put in a big performance.”
Underhill added: “You want to enjoy your time at a club and the best way to do that is to give everything you’ve got, whether it be at training or at the matches.
“You enjoy it by putting in performances and winning silverware, that is everyone’s goal.
“I don’t think you can ever experience too many different lifestyles and places, I am really glad I came to Wales, it has been an awesome place to live and play.”