1
Exeter update leaves Simmonds the latest doubt for England tour
By Liam Heagney
Exeter are still awaiting feedback before reaching a decision on the best treatment for the injury that has sidelined Sam Simmonds and made him a doubt for the England tour of Australia in July. It was last Friday, when the back-rower's name was absent from the Chiefs' team sheet for their European game at Munster, that it first emerged there was something up with the 27-year-old.
Having played five times for England during their recent Guinness Six Nations campaign, three of those appearances coming as the starting No8, Simmonds returned to Exeter to play the full 80 minutes of both their Gallagher Premiership clash with Leicester and the first leg of their round of 16 Heineken Champions Cup tie with Munster.
There was no inkling that there was an underlying injury problem, but the situation became public last weekend with Simmonds was left to join the Jack Nowell stag do entourage in the stands in Limerick last Saturday afternoon rather than take any part in the match.
In the aftermath of Exeter's elimination from Europe, Baxter initially emitted optimism that Simmonds could potentially make it back and play before the end of the Premiership season. “It’s a hip/groin, a combination of a few things. He is sore, he is struggling to train really and that is the problem," he explained post-game last Saturday.
“We can get him on the field but he is very limited training which fitness-wise and performance-wise, he is kind of on that downward spiral until we can sort this issue out. We are investigating that now, he will see the specialist this week but with all the scans and things, we are hopeful we will see him before the end of the season."
Baxter sounded less hopeful, though, five days later when he held his weekly media briefing ahead of this Sunday's trip to arch-rivals Saracens. "We are still monitoring it," he explained. "There are some treatment options, a lot more is going to be known this week. It doesn't necessarily need to be season over for him but we just need to assess everything correctly."
Asked if Simmonds was now a doubt for the three-Test England series in Australia, Baxter added: "Without him getting all the consultants' feedback, it's at what level they think any intervention is required at this stage. So I don't want to say he will definitely be back for England and I don't want to say he will definitely be back for us at the end of the season because I don't think it is as simple a prognosis as that."
Baxter's inconclusive update means that Simmonds has become the second forward this week to become a doubt for the England tour which begins in Perth on July 2 as Northampton were unable to offer a definitive timeline regarding the dislocated thumb injury suffered by Courtney Lawes where the bone, according to director of rugby Chris Boyd, came out through the skin.
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Stuart Lancaster 'wants out' of Racing 92 and eyeing Euro giants job
3
Henry Arundell lined up for early England homecoming
4
Government provides bleak assessment on the state of the Premiership
5
Latest Comments
Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
Go to comments