Gloucester Rugby scrum-half Joe Simpson says he was left ‘frustrated’ by his lack of opportunities with England throughout his career.
Simpson, who is in his debut season at Gloucester, has only picked up one cap across his 14-year career. The 31-year-old scored 31 tries in his time at Wasps.
The single cap came in the pool stage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup against Georgia, coming off the bench for Ben Youngs. Simpson had been named in a couple of Martin Johnson’s England squad prior to that but never made an appearance.
Simpson has scored eight tries for the Cherry and Whites this season, with two coming against his former side Wasps. Speaking to the media yesterday at Gloucester’s Hartpury training base, Simpson claimed that it was desire to succeed that could’ve effected it.
“I’m immensely competitive and I’ve been in trouble in the past for being too competitive and having too many conversations with coaches,” said Simpson.
A game for the purists today. Loved experiencing my first home match of the season, privilege playing in front of the shed. pic.twitter.com/le10rZNCh2
— Joe Simpson (@joesimpson9) October 26, 2019
What was the obstacle in his way?
The scrum half was a consistent and dependable player for many years at Wasps. During the period in which he was in the England set up, Wasps had a poor 2010/11 campaign, finishing ninth. Simpson felt that he was in some of his best form, saying:
“I think for whatever reason they’ve decided to go with other players. Possibly my time to be capped and to pick up quite a few was when Lee Dickson was in the England fold.
“That’s probably when I felt most frustrated, I appreciate he was a decent player but I felt like I was performing better than him.”
At the time Dickson’s Northampton Saints had been in fine form, finishing 4th in the Premiership and getting to the final of the Heineken Cup.
“It could be the fact he was playing at Northampton when they were in their pomp. That could have helped him.
“He also was someone who had a lot of dialogue with the coaches throughout the week quite frustratingly so was always following them around,” said the former Wasps man.
However, Dickson was not Simpson’s only competition with Leicester Tigers’ Ben Youngs and Harlequins’ Danny Care.
“I have to live with that and that I have also have grown up with unfortunately the best England has ever produced and have gone on to be the highest capped nines of all-time. That possibly didn’t help my cause either.”
Simpson on his former Wasps teammate Jacob Umaga
However, with Eddie Jones having named his Six Nations squad on Monday, Joe Simpson was pleased to hear news of former team mate Jacob Umaga’s selection.
“I was delighted for him, he’s a really nice kid.
“Last season he came back from New Zealand and started training with the first team a fair bit. He’s a ten that I like training with. When you’re training against the firsts he was the ten that you always appreciated having there.”
The 21-year-old has started eight games for Wasps this season, scoring 70 points including two tries. Simpson identified Umaga’s talents early on, saying:
“He was very vocal, had good skills and we always knew he had good potential. I didn’t expect it if I’m honest, I think he would be pretty honest about it, I don’t think many people expected him to get the call.
https://lastwordonrugby.com/2019/11/28/who-is-jacob-umaga/
“But it’s fantastic news he has done. He does have real potential, he’s far from the finished article but does have a lot of the raw skills,” said Simpson
The Gloucester scrum-half will look to capitalise on Willi Heinz’s absence in the coming weeks due to his Six Nations selection. He will hope to be in line to start against Bristol Bears away at Ashton Gate this Saturday.
“Main photo credit”
