Sam Simmonds today finds himself closer to British and Irish Lions selection than to being picked by England.
European club rugby’s player of the year has more than twice as many tries as any other player in the Premiership.
His 13th try in only 12 league games this season for Exeter was watched at Bath on Saturday by Lions boss Warren Gatland.
And it led Lawrence Dallaglio, a World Cup winner in Simmonds’ No.8 position, to demand that Eddie Jones give him a go.
“Sam was outstanding, as per usual,” Dallaglio said. “Scoring tries, affecting the game.
“C’mon! People have got to see this. A No.8 with pace off the base of the scrum, getting over the gainline. Pick him!”
Dallaglio’s exhortation followed Simmonds’ brother Joe revealing, in these pages on Saturday, the family frustration at neither of them getting a look-in.
“Sam is playing his best rugby and for me is by far the best player in the Premiership,” said Chiefs’ young captain. “He’s playing consistently better than some internationals.”
Jones admitted yesterday for the first time that England, beaten in two of their three Six Nations games, are “definitely going through a transition period”.
He added that there needed to be a “little bit of a revision” of the team to “freshen it up” and insisted “we are going through that at the moment”.
Yet ahead of this week’s Twickenham clash with France, who will not have played for a month, he would not talk about Sam Simmonds.
“I’m only here to speak about players I’ve selected,” he said, denying he is any way ignorant as to what Simmonds is doing.
The 26-year-old is not so much pulling up trees as replanting forests. In 68 games for Exeter he has 60 tries, a club record 44 in 60 in the Premiership.
In contrast England incumbent Billy Vunipola has played little rugby and until last week in Wales had not got over the gain line, let alone the try line.
With the Six Nations title now out of reach it would seem an opportune time to speed up the “transition” to which Jones refers.
But he disagrees, saying: “When I select a player I want them to be ready to play and if I don’t think they’re ready to play, just because we’re going through a tough spell at the moment, it’s not a reason to put them in.
“We’ve had a fairly settled team and now’s the time we need to start changing it. But we’ll do that in what to us - if maybe not to others - is an ordered way.
“We’ve got a plan in place of how we want to keep the team fresh and keep the team moving forward. And results don’t exacerbate that process.”
