Nick Isiekwe: 'It has taught me resilience, you can’t just give up'

It’s England versus New Zealand next weekend and this time Nick Isiekwe is arriving at the fixture via the front door. When the countries met in July for a two-match series in Dunedin and Auckland, the versatile Saracens forward was only a post-Japan squad call-up to replace the suspended Charlie Ewels, who was red-carded in the tour opener in Tokyo.

Isiekwe ultimately didn’t make it into either match day 23; no surprise given that the last of his 11 caps came in March 2023 away to Ireland. However, having reacted positively to the individual development plan formulated by Steve Borthwick and co under the new professional game partnership, he made the original squad of 36 for last week’s Autumn Nations Series training camp in Girona.

That was an apt reward for his bright start to the new Gallagher Premiership season, a flourish that exhibited him in his pomp in last weekend’s spectacular Sarries comeback win at Bristol. Now with Ollie Chessum reportedly ruled out of the November action due to a training ground injury in Spain, might next Saturday’s latest collision with the All Blacks herald the return of the 26-year-old Isiekwe to his country’s bench? We’ll see.

It was October 15, on a shivering morning in Cardiff at the Investec Champions Cup launch, when the lock – who doubles up at blindside – exclusively broke bread in a fifth-floor suite with RugbyPass. "How am I playing at the moment? I feel like my body and my fitness and my health is back to where it needs to be,” he enthused despite the Principality Stadium cold that would have sharply contrasted with the Spanish heat he trained in recent days with England.

“That has been the focus, to get my fitness to where it needs to be so I can have those repeat involvements and be involved in games as much as possible. I feel good in that regard but I need to keep on pushing it, I need to keep on demanding I can be involved in games, making sure I stay constantly involved. If I can have an impact in any shape, way or form I’ll take the opportunities when they are given to me. At the moment I feel good, I feel like I am in a good headspace, motivated.”

Isiekwe was an England bench pick in three of Borthwick’s initial five matches in charge but hasn’t featured since. Waiting in the wings is nothing new. He once spent 44 months out of the selection loop under Eddie Jones. But recent promptings by current head coach Borthwick have nudged him back into the picture.

“You always have dialogue with all the coaches as a collaboration. What has been great is that everyone from club to country is now on the same page as to where they want me to be and how they want me to improve and it just makes it clearer,” he vouched.

“It makes everything a lot clearer and you have a clear vision of how you are going to get to potentially where you want to get to. As a player, it’s for you to put in the work to where they set for you but I would say that one very good thing is aligning the club with the country and how they want to see you play, which has been great.

“I just think how much I can be in games, how much I can be involved in games. Not necessarily the big Hollywood involvements; that has never really been my game. It's how many times I can just be there and be effective. That always will be the push and the drive to be better. It’s definitely a lot clearer to me now.”

What might have affected his England chances previously? “I think a lot about the set-piece, a lot about everything in general. With experience, the set-piece has got a little bit I wouldn’t say easier but it doesn’t take as long to understand the nuances.

“That is one of the things that has definitely become easier for me so now the focus becomes more about play in the game and how I can have an effect in that area. Taking away from the general point of view and looking at it from having those key few things will make it easier for me.

“It’s all a motivating factor. It’s all I want, to be playing at the highest level I can. I want to get myself to a place where I can do that so everything that goes into it is motivation and remaining focused on getting to that point. It’s staying constant and keeping that motivation constant also. There are always going to be fluctuations and whether you get picked or not, but you have got to keep the same. That is what I try and do.”

It’s inspiring that Isiekwe sounds so optimistic about his long-term future at the top of the game. There was a worrying time in September 2022 when it appeared it could be prematurely ended. Diagnosed with a dilated aorta, his breastbone was split open so that Conal Austin, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Guys and St Thomas Hospital in London, could perform the ground-breaking procedure that returned him to full health, saving his career.

Usually media shy, it’s a bullish recovery story not often regaled by Isiekwe. However, more than two years on from that fateful hospital stay, he now hopes publicising his stimulating rehabilitation can help others dealing with cardiac health scares.

“It's quite incredible,” he mused. “I look back on it and sit here now with a lot of pride because it was a difficult situation. I didn’t speak about it too much at the time. I generally keep myself to myself, stay as under the radar with that stuff as possible.

“But now I just have a huge sense of pride to get to the point where I wanted to get to. At the time it was very difficult, very, very difficult being told you may not play again, being told you have this problem but you feel okay because the whole situation was asymptomatic.

“It was a tough time in my life but there was help and Dr Austin, the surgeon, is an incredible man. He set out the timeframe and it kickstarted something, a motivation I never really had before, that I don’t care what, I’m going to do this, and then I went through the process.

“What it has done is taught me a sense of resilience that you can’t just give up. It wasn’t always easy. Some days it was, ‘Am I going to get back to the point I was at before?’ Sometimes I would have doubts. But why I say I am sitting here with so much pride is because I feel completely normal again, I feel fiery, feel good. It was a difficult situation but you do draw some good from it.

“I’m not a heart surgeon, not a cardiologist. Don’t have a clue about that stuff, but all I needed was the green light. That might sound silly but as soon as he gave me the green light it was all systems go. He said, 'You will have to wait three months until you will be able to do contact with your sternum again', so I waited three months, got my fitness back and was available again.

“My attitude towards injury is you want to overcome it and generally you want to push your body as hard as you can. Looking back, whether it was the right thing to do because it is your heart, who knows? But I’m very happy to be back now in the position I am in,” he beamed.

“I speak to people and I enjoy it. I love giving as much support and insight as possible because I know how difficult it is; I know how hard those first three to six weeks are following any kind of open heart surgery. People have reached out and hopefully I can use this platform to say that if anybody needs something, I am more than happy to speak to people about the recovery and how it goes, that there is always hope.

“There is always hope if you believe and that is one thing I will always believe in my mind, that you can overcome things and if you don’t, it’s not the end, you keep going and you keep smiling. You have a few people at the club you can speak to if you ever need any help or are struggling,” he added, recalling how Saracens assisted his major time of need. “It’s so important because rugby can sometimes be a very lonely place.

“One day you’re the best, the next you’re down and starting from scratch. It’s very volatile so from your own perspective, having those people to keep an outside perspective to make you understand it’s not always the end is so important.”

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