For reasons best known to Stuart Lancaster, Chris Pennell is not among the 50 players the England head coach will gather around him before the World Cup.
While England’s finest prepare to gather at their Surrey base, Pennell will be at Center Parcs making up for lost time with his 20-month-old daughter, Harla. After that, while England think about transferring to Denver for altitude training, the Worcester full-back and his wife, Joanna, will be very much at sea-level, enjoying a holiday with family and friends in Devon.
For a player who returned from England’s summer tour of New Zealand with his reputation enhanced and as recently as late February was called into the Six Nations camp as cover for the No1 full-back Mike Brown, such demotion could have played on the mind had Pennell not had plenty of other things to think about.
As it was, eight hours after England’s extended World Cup squad was announced, Pennell was standing under his first high ball of a particularly torrid evening at Ashton Gate, Bristol, in the first leg of the shootout for promotion to the Premiership, a contest which concludes on Wednesday evening with Worcester taking a one-point lead into the second leg.
If it proves half as exciting as the game a week ago, when Worcester took the lead for the last time in the final minute, the entry fee will be money well spent. However, it also takes the Pennell story full circle because this is the chance he gambled on when 18 months ago, he decided to lock his future to Worcester.
To put that decision into context, you have to remember that at the time Worcester were rocketing towards relegation at a rate of knots, but rather than accept offers from at least two of the sides then in the top six of the Premiership, Pennell decided to stick with his home-town club and the future then being mapped out by the new director of rugby, Dean Ryan.
Ryan reckons it must have been the most difficult of decisions for a player with a Test future, the prospect of at least one season in the Championship. Pennell, now 28, says it was a “no-brainer”.
“There were a number of reasons which lead me to that decision but one of them, the main one, was that I massively believed in Dean and massively believed in his vision for the club. For all the years that I have been there this club has been sitting on real potential but we haven’t had anyone with the vision to see how it might look in five or six years from now and for the first time I felt we had put that person in charge.
“That was massive for me. We’ve had all that potential, now we had the right man there and if I moved on and saw it all happening how would I feel in five or six years when it’s my home club. The answer was that I would be pretty devastated. I wanted to be part of that.”
Initially it was a decision which went well for both sides. Worcester’s recruiting sergeants could argue they had reversed the trend of losing better players – Dylan Hartley, Tom Wood, Matt Mullan, Matt Kvestic, Graham Kitchener – to other clubs, while England told Pennell he was in their sights.
After that first cap in New Zealand, Pennell continued to hear good words from England and when Brown was concussed during the Six Nations, England were on the phone again. Admittedly there were injuries but Pennell’s form continued to be good as Worcester and Bristol went head to head at the top of the Championship. Then a week ago came the news Pennell had not made the 50 who will be slimmed down to 31 for the World Cup.
“I was devastated,” he said during a break in training this week. “All my feedback has been very positive and continues to be. I thought there was a slot for me but with the [play-off] final coming up I immediately had something else to concentrate on and into which I could channel my frustrations. I’m very much a glass-half-full rather than a glass-half-empty guy. On the field it felt pretty great – like a proper rugby game. With great respect to the rugby we’ve played this year it is probably the first time that we have been really tested. I loved it.”
Also at the third time of asking, Worcester beat Bristol 28-29 and go into tonight’s second leg at Sixways Stadium as the favourites with the bookmakers and sure of a full house. After that? Pennell says Center Parcs is making up for lost time. “We were going there when I got called up for the Ireland week during the Six Nations and in the end I only made it for 24 hours so I’m going to make amends.”
