Sam Simmonds’ stellar season is fuelled by ability rather than anger over being ignored by England, according to his Exeter boss Rob Baxter.
Simmonds has amassed 14 tries in the Gallagher Premiership this season, six more than his nearest rival, and is reigning European player of the year, yet he is consistently overlooked by Eddie Jones.
While Jones is unpersuaded, the number eight’s rampaging form has propelled him into contention for a place on the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa this summer.
And providing the stage to convince Warren Gatland that he is of Lions calibre is Exeter’s Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final against Leinster at Sandy Park on Saturday.
“Sometimes we look for all of these complex drivers but Sam is having a good season because he’s a very good player and it’s as simple as that,” Baxter said.
“If he is angry and has got a point to prove to England then that’s great and there is nothing wrong with that being a driver.
“But his driver might also be that he wants to have a great season and win some games of rugby.
“He hears everyone keep saying he should be in the England team and he should be going on the Lions tour and all of these things.
“They are all motivators but ultimately you can only play well if you are a great player.
“So the foundation of it all is that he’s a good player and whatever his motivations are, then great.”
Exeter remain on course to defend last season’s double and Baxter insists that if they are successful, it will because solo targets have been met.
“If you want to build success, it’s about what the individuals want to achieve,” Baxter said.
“We focused on who is going to have their best season, hit personal bests, set records.
“If you look at clubs with ongoing success it’s because players have ongoing better seasons, or a rookie comes out of nowhere to have a season-best performance.
“All clubs are driven by someone setting higher standards. That leads and galvanises the team.
“An example standing out to me already is that you look at where Sam Simmonds is on try-scoring – there’s potential for him to set the record as the highest scorer in the Premiership.
“Those kinds of things are what you want to see. Trophies, getting to quarter or semi-finals are all a bit pie in the sky unless individuals decide to have their best seasons.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here