As doubts continue to linger over Jack Nowell’s fitness for the World Cup, Eddie Jones has the brutal honesty of Anthony Watson’s father to thank for ensuring his wing ranks are not further depleted. Nowell’s place on the plane to Japan remains in jeopardy but Watson is back to full fitness and looks set for his first England appearance in 18 months this weekend after his father Duncan’s “kick up the backside” during his lengthy injury lay-off.
Watson tore his achilles at the end of the 2018 Six Nations and needed surgery a second time after rupturing it again four months later during an NFL photoshoot. A niggling quad injury further delayed his comeback until April but, after three appearances for Bath, Jones saw fit to include the 25-year-old in his World Cup plans in June. Doubts were raised when Jones then sent him for a week’s conditioning in Loughborough with the sprint coach Jonas Dodoo last month while the rest of the squad gathered in Bristol but, after returning for the recent camp in Treviso, he is set to face Wales in England’s first World Cup warm-up match on Sunday.
All going well at Twickenham, he seems sure to be named in Jones’s final 31-man World Cup squad on Monday but Watson admitted Japan could have been beyond him without a few home truths via text message. “There were a few days, over the 13 months … I had two or three days where I was particularly like ‘this is a nightmare’,” said Watson. “But I think the quicker you can snap out of those days, snap out of those moods and try to focus on what you’re trying to achieve, then the better you are for it.
“I texted my dad saying I was struggling and he just replied, ‘Mate, you’ve got to get on with it or you’ll never play rugby again,’ and I was just like ‘Wow, you can never hit more home than that.’ It’s so black and white but it’s so true, if you really want to play rugby again you’ve got to do everything you can to get back playing rugby again. You can’t just sit and mope around. That was a real kick up the backside.”
It was not Watson’s first long-term injury lay-off, having been sidelined with a broken jaw and debilitating hamstring injury in recent years, but his struggles during his recovery are nonetheless entirely understandable. Equally so is just how much Jones will want him at his disposal in Japan. The 2003 World Cup winner Jason Robinson was at England’s hotel on Wednesday, offering a timely reminder that in terms of devastating footwork Watson is the closest among the current crop by way of comparison.
But is he as quick as he was before injury struck? “Everyone wants to know the stats, don’t they? Yeah, I can safely that they’re close to that, if not there. I’d definitely like to improve still. That week I had with Jonas away from camp was hugely beneficial for me. I came back feeling a lot better. It was slow progress. With an achilles it’s very variable, so it was just dealing with those days when you thought it was all going so smoothly and when it’s not going so smoothly.”
Watson waxes lyrical about Dodoo having decided that, so early into his comeback when Bath’s season came to an end, he ought to undertake a three-week training programme with the coach who lists the Olympic gold medallist Greg Rutherford among his previous clients, before joining up with England. When asked to do so again last month, however, Watson feared the worst. “At first I was a bit sketchy, not being with the lads was definitely sketchy but when I had it explained to me why I was going up there and what it was for, and then on the back of the week … I didn’t see it right at the start it was definitely the best thing that could have happened. [Jonas] just explains running in a fascinating way. His cues to help his athletes get better are second to none.”
As far as Nowell is concerned, meanwhile, England are likely to delay a final decision on whether he goes to the World Cup but the chances of him featuring in any of their warm-ups are increasingly slim and it would be no surprise to see Jones retain additional cover when naming his squad on Monday. “It’s ongoing,” the England assistant coach, Neal Hatley, said. “He saw the specialist last week and is in with us this week now. We’ll make the decision that we can closer to the time with all the information that we have.”