The making of Super Sam
Simmonds’ rise from the playing fields of Devon
Dave Simmonds did not make it out to Rome to watch his son Sam’s barnstorming, two-try performance on his Natwest Six Nations debut at the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday. Not for the first time where Sam’s rugby is concerned, the speed at which things developed rather took him by surprise.
“We didn’t know he would be in the team until late last week,” Simmonds Snr explains to The Daily Telegraph from his home in Teignmouth. “So, we just watched the game at home with my brother Rob, who lives next door. My nephew and his partner came over. It turned into a pretty good afternoon.”
That is an understatement. When even Eddie Jones, England’s head coach, is waxing lyrical about Simmonds’s fast, elusive, “Twenty20”-style game, and comparing him favourably with the All Black Victor Vito, you know it has been a good afternoon.
Did they at least get to speak afterwards? “We tried to ring him but I think they had James Bond in their dressing room or something,” Simmonds says, referring to actor Daniel Craig’s photobombing of the England dressing room.
England’s decision to start with Simmonds may only have come about because Billy Vunipola and Nathan Hughes were injured. But it is difficult to see how Jones can leave the Exeter back-rower out for the visit of Wales this weekend. As well as the two tries, Simmonds posted game-high totals for tackles made (23), carries (14), metres made (80), clean breaks (three) and defenders beaten (six). He also weighed in with an assist for fellow Exeter Chief Jack Nowell.
Whatever Jones decides, all England fans will be hoping one of the more unconventional journeys to the top of the rugby tree continues on its current splendid trajectory. It was not so long ago Simmonds was struggling to make the Cornish Pirates first team, having been sent there on loan by Exeter. This time last year he had yet to make his Premiership debut. The speed at which things have come together is extraordinary.
He nearly never made it at all. Dave Simmonds recalls his son wanting to be a footballer for “a good four years” from the age of about nine, describing him as a “very good player”. A phone call to Simmonds’s first club, Teignmouth RFC, confirms that. Bridget Pattison – wife of Simmonds’s under-14s and under-15s coach, Graham Pattison – recalls Simmonds being a “lovely boy” but one with divided loyalties.
The records show, though, that when Simmonds did focus on the oval ball, the results were impressive. Pattison has kept scrapbooks full of local newspaper cuttings. “I’m looking at a picture of him now scoring for the under-14s against Plymstock,” she
says. Playing mainly on the wing (Simmonds appears lithe and whippet-like in those early years, the “big bum” referred to by Nowell post-italy not yet in evidence), Simmonds helped Teignmouth win the Devon Plate at under-14s. At under-15s he scored 16 tries in a season. At under-16s he scored 14.
After a season at Torquay RFC, Simmonds returned to Teignmouth and moved to the centres, from which position he wrought merry havoc, scoring 34 tries in only 16 appearances and helping Teignmouth reach the Devon Colts Shield final.
Simmonds’s father – like Nowell Snr a trawlerman and with whom Simmonds still lives – openly admits sport had by now “taken over” his two boys’ lives. Sam’s brother, Joe, now a fly-half with Exeter, is two years his junior.
Was England’s new No8 never tempted to follow him out on the seas? “Not really” he laughs. “My brother Rob and I catch crabs and lobsters. He likes eating them but he’s not so keen on catching them. We’ve got a boat and he took a few of the Chiefs lads out last summer. I’d say he likes to go out on a boat as long as he’s sunbathing.”
Simmonds joined Exeter’s academy in 2012, making his debut for the senior side in a LV Cup game against London Welsh in November 2012. It would be another 4½ years until he made his Premiership bow.
Rob Baxter, Exeter’s director of rugby, admitted it was a proud moment watching not only Simmonds, but Nowell, Harry Williams and Alec Hepburn all playing well in the same England team on Sunday. “It’s what we’ve worked so hard for, and targeted for a long time and it was great to see,” he says. “Especially how happy they were for each other. They deserve huge credit.”
The question now is how far Simmonds can go. Still only 23, and with fewer than 30 top-flight appearances under his belt, Baxter says there is plenty to come. At only 16-odd stone – a full five stones less than Billy Vunipola – he feels Simmonds may fill out a little but admits it is a “fine balancing act” between putting on muscle and losing that devastating speed. “What you don’t want is for him to get artificially big,” he said. “To try to turn him into some 18st guy would be wrong.”
What about his best position? Lawrence Dallaglio, Sir Clive Woodward and Ben Kay all offered various theories on Sunday. “I don’t think it’s a big issue,” Baxter said. “I think rugby has kind of moved beyond the ‘specialist’ guy doing this or doing that. Everyone has to play what’s in front of them and be proficient at it. It doesn’t really matter if he’s six or seven or eight. But yes, you want to get the ball in his hands as often as possible.”
Beginning against Wales? Simmonds Snr is hoping so. After missing out in Italy, he and his wife will be travelling to Twickenham. “We’re looking forward to it,” he says. They are not the only ones.