Ben Morgan has not played for England since the defeat by Australia knocked the hosts out of the 2015 World Cup and, as his 100th appearance for Gloucester looms, he is at the only Premiership club overlooked by the national head coach, Eddie Jones, for his Brighton training camp this week.
Not that the No8, who has won 31 caps, is dreaming about international rugby after making his latest return from injury. Morgan is hoping to make only his fifth start of the season at Northampton on Saturday having recovered from a calf problem and been restored to the side in last weekend’s victory over Sale.
“I have not thought about England,” says Morgan, who turns 29 next month and has been a busy father of two since a daughter, Florence, was born in October. “I am very much focusing on Gloucester: I love being in the shirt and hope to get more opportunities. If we are successful it will breed success elsewhere and, while we have had a good start to the season, we have not been delivering performances that we are totally pleased with. There is definitely more to come from us.”
Johan Ackermann, the Gloucester head coach, did not react indignantly to the snub by England, pointing out that national squads evolve and are no longer down to selectorial whims after a player makes a dazzling club appearance. He has challenged his England-qualified players to play at a consistently high standard to attract Jones’s attention, an approach Morgan agrees with.
“It is up to players here to make sure we are putting markers down every week and more and more will get international honours,” says the No8. “We have got to keep plugging away. We were probably underrated at the start of the season and people are now starting to look at us as a team. We do not look outside what we are doing here, going from week to week.”
Morgan only just made the England squad for the last World Cup after breaking an ankle at the beginning of 2015. “The injury wiped me out for some time and, although I was playing again after nine months, it was another year before I started to feel good again,” he says. “We have just passed the halfway mark in the Premiership and I have not had much involvement. I am very much aware that the boys have been grafting hard. I am looking forward to making a contribution.”
If he plays at Franklin’s Gardens it will be his 99th appearance for the cherry and whites, the club he joined from the Scarlets in 2012. While in Wales Morgan worked as a part-time plumber before making his professional breakthrough and during his most recent injury lay-off he has been future-proofing his career, setting up a new company with his father called No8 Scaffolding. As he puts it, “Rugby isn’t for ever.”
For now, though, he is focused on Northampton, where Gloucester have won seven times in the Premiership. They have risen under Ackermann from a side used to wallowing in the nether regions to one pressing for a first appearance in the play-offs for 10 years, almost swapping places with the Saints, who are 10th in the table after October’s visit to Kinsgholm sparked their current run of seven successive league defeats.
“The majority of our squad have been together for some time and have been through some awkward patches,” says Morgan. “We have shown more resilience this season: bad experiences make you tougher and we have developed a new mind-set and culture through people who have come in. Winning is a habit and in the Premiership it is a hard one to get into because it is so competitive: the teams that finish at the top do not change that much across four or five years, as Exeter have shown.
“Northampton, unfortunately for them, have hit a bit of a sticky patch and we do not want to be the ones they find their form against. They have a good squad and will at some point turn it round. We have to make sure it is not against us.”
Gloucester have, in the prolonged absence of Morgan and the Wales and Lions flanker Ross Moriarty, blooded a number of players in the back row this season, leaving Ackermann with a selection dilemma. “Our whole squad is extremely competitive and that is what you want,” says Morgan. “It is all about working hard and being hungry. I have not had to change anything in particular under Johan. It is a freer style of rugby: we are looking to have the back-rowers in the wider channels to give you more opportunity to have a few carries against backs. It is about workrate and energy, simple fundamentals.”
