Denny Solomona has been reassured by Eddie Jones he remains firmly on England’s radar despite the late-night drinking session that led to the Sale wing and Leicester’s Manu Tuilagi being sent home early from a training camp last month. The England coach has kept in touch with the penitent 23-year-old who insists the incident was a one-off.
Solomona, whose dramatic last-gasp try earned England victory on his Test debut in Argentina in June, has even chosen to become a vegan as he seeks to persuade Jones to give him a second chance after his summer indiscretion. “We speak quite often and chat,” said Solomona, who has scored 11 tries in only 15 appearances for Sale after switching codes last season. “He’s a coach but he’s a mentor as well. He’s just said: ‘Knuckle down, train hard and play well’ and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to let my rugby do the talking and go from there.”
Competition for wing places in the England squad is intensifying, with Elliot Daly, Anthony Watson and Jack Nowell all featuring for the Lions in their drawn Test series against New Zealand, but Solomona plans to make an instant impact in Sale’s opening Premiership game at Wasps on Saturday having scored a hat-trick of tries against the same opponents last February.
“That’s what I’m hoping for … to continue the form I had last season,” he said. “Wasps have a lot of class and plenty of English squad players. There’d be nothing better than coming off what’s happened and showing what I can do.”
Sale remain fully supportive of Solomona, who stood in front of his club-mates to apologise for the headlines generated by his night out with Tuilagi. “I told them it was a person I put away a long time ago,” said the former Castleford winger. “I told them it was a mistake which has proven costly but I now know what to do. It was definitely out of character, I’m not like that. One slip-up costs you a cap but I can’t dwell on the past. All I can do is get on with it and focus on my team here at Sale.”
Steve Diamond also suspects Jones will forgive Solomona as long as the player learns from the experience. “People need a clear directive, particularly young lads,” the Sale director of rugby said. “If it was clear then he’s dropped a bollock; if it wasn’t then he won’t drop the same bollock again. Denny is a massively committed lad. Nobody else is to blame, he’s not been led astray. He’s made an error and he’s paid for it. He apologised to the squad for putting the club’s name, as he thought, in jeopardy. But he hasn’t. It’s one of those things, as Eddie knows. You’ve got to give young lads a bit of rope.”
In a bid to catch Jones’s eye Solomona has been working hard in the gym and will start the season 5kg heavier. He wants to make himself even tougher to stop – “in my position you only get three or four opportunities and you need to make them count” – while giving up meat and fish in favour of a vegan diet is already paying dividends. “I feel a lot better for it,” he said. “It’s more for health reasons, it’s not saving animals or anything.”
The next England training squad is named on 22 September and Solomona remains confident he can challenge Daly, Watson and Nowell. “They’ve got a lot of experience and played a lot of Test match rugby. That’s what I want to do and what I want to become. It’s going to be healthy competition and that can only be good for England.”
