Dunn still pushing at England’s door
EDDIE Jones has told hard-tackling Bath hooker Tom Dunn that the door remains open for a recall to the England set up.
The 25-year-old trained frequently with England last season and was part of Jones’s pre-Six Nations squad, but Dunn was overlooked for the Red Roses’ 44-man August pre-season camp.
Worcester’s Jack Singleton and Exeter’s Luke Cowan-Dickie, along with mainstays Dylan Hartley and Jamie George, were preferred to Dunn.
Bath-born Dunn, who is fully fit after suffering a broken eye socket in the final game of last season, says he is targeting a return to the England squad by making the Bath No. 2 shirt his own this season.
“Eddie called me before the pre-season camp was announced and told me that he wasn’t taking me,” Dunn said.
“He said he was happy with my defence, happy with my attack and happy with my set-piece, but they wanted to look at someone else. It wasn’t so much that I needed to work on this or work on that.
“I asked him, ‘Am I dropped? Is that it for me?’ He said, ‘No, I never see anyone as dropped – if you play well for your club you’ll always get picked’. And that’s fair enough.
“Obviously I’d love to be involved. I had a little chance last year, but I’d love more.”
Dunn’s principal shortterm focus is on beating team-mates Ross Batty, Michael can Vuuren and Jack Walker to the Bath hooking berth, and getting the West Country side towards the top of the Premiership.
“For me the ambition is to be the first-choice hooker for Bath Rugby and play as many minutes as I can injury-free,” he said.
Dunn has been a oneclub man since making his debut for Bath in 2012 – and says the pride in playing for his home-town club is more intense than ever.
“If anything there’s even more pride now,” he said. “When you’re younger, people just say well done, you played. But now there’s an expectation that you have to play well. That’s part of the buzz for me.
“Motivation is quite a personal, individual thing but for me. It comes down to a dominant scrum and a dominant set-piece and as a club we haven’t been where we want to be for the past couple of years, and it’s embarrassing when somebody’s physically beating you. That’s what drives me to get better.”