Everyone who has ever been rejected, in any walk of life, knows how deeply it can sting. Which makes the soothing balm of subsequent affirmation all the sweeter. At least four publishers turned down George Orwell’s Animal Farm while the curt advice once issued to F Scott Fitzgerald – “You’d have a decent book if you get rid of that Gatsby character” – has also entered literary lore. One person’s opinion is not necessarily the gospel truth.
It is similarly the case in sport. Rugby is full of examples of successful players who were rejected, overlooked or released on their way up. Often it is the making of them, the initial setback proving the catalyst for individuals either to redouble their efforts or change their entire outlook. Some clubs, the double-winning Exeter Chiefs among them, had a policy of recruiting so-called misfits or rejects from other teams whom they knew would respond well if offered the chance of redemption.
Which brings us to Kyle Sinckler, the highly rated – and decently remunerated – Bristol and England tighthead prop. Despite not having the easiest of upbringings in London, Sinckler has achieved a huge amount in his 28 years, including 44 caps for England and three Test appearances for the British & Irish Lions as a replacement in New Zealand in 2017. Last week, however, he was omitted from the Lions squad to tour South Africa this summer. His sense of numb disappointment on BT Sport at the weekend was both raw and compelling.
While his emotional interview – “I have never had so much anger inside me” – attracted widespread admiration for its honesty, it proved painful viewing for friends such as Adam Jones, his former scrummaging guru at Harlequins. “I have been incredibly proud of him many times [but] on Saturday that surpassed everything: the way he spoke, putting it all out there. I understand his emotion. And when you are emotionally attached to a kid like that … it was tough to watch but it also shows how much he has grown as a bloke since that annoying little kid I first came across six years ago.”
As a former Lions prop himself, it is Jones’s professional opinion that Warren Gatland could yet need Sinckler in South Africa. “Do I think he should have toured? Yes, he should be on the tour. Do I think he will probably get a call-up if someone gets injured? Hopefully, yes. I don’t want anyone to get injured, but if there is I am sure he will be the next guy on the plane. In the 2019 World Cup final, when he got knocked out … the scrum wouldn’t have been such an issue because of the way he scrums. It would have caused them more problems.”
Most pertinent of all, though, was Sinckler’s on-field response at Bath. This has not always been his greatest season but on Saturday he was a player reborn. The home scrum were regularly shoved backwards, he was conspicuous in open play and the man of the match award duly followed. “I wanted to show the kids and everyone at home how much it means to me and not throw my toys out of the pram. I wanted to use that anger in a positive way to do what is best for the team.”
Clearly such intense levels of motivation are not on tap every week. There have been days, with no crowds in the grounds, when all players have had to dig deep to generate the requisite motivation. But Gatland, if nothing else, now knows rather more about the extent of Sinckler’s desire. Whether or not the latter’s Lions omission was related to a couple of off-field issues in New Zealand four years ago, he has shown that adversity can bring out the best in him.
Nor was it a case study that will have been lost on another national coach who just happened to be at the Recreation Ground. Indeed it will further confirm Eddie Jones’s opinion that experiencing unexpected adversity is not so much desirable for elite athletes as essential. Harsh, maybe, but uncomfortable players with a point to prove are exactly what he craves.
Which may help explain why Jones left his seat at the Stoop early on Sunday, before the in-form Harlequins fly-half Marcus Smith snatched the deciding points in the closing moments of his side’s freewheeling 48-46 win against Wasps. The 22-year-old Smith is flying right now and everyone can see it, which leaves Jones with a slight problem. He already has a brace of senior fly-halves in Owen Farrell and George Ford and – as Danny Cipriani can testify – the policy has been that two is company but three’s a crowd.
At such times the mind rewinds to Jones’s book and the section on Maro Itoje, whom he used to describe as a Vauxhall Viva whenever he sensed the media wanting to anoint him as the new Messiah. “When I first saw him play, I wasn’t convinced that he was that good,” sniffed Jones. “In early 2016 he was being hyped as the best prospect in world rugby – which seemed a stretch to me. I knew that in England, where the media are in an eternal competition to outdo each other with facile predictions about who is the biggest, greatest and fastest, players get hyped as ‘world class’ way too soon.”
It did not take Itoje too long to change Jones’s mind and there is every chance that Smith, having been mostly overlooked since his days as a youthful squad “apprentice”, will be capped in this summer’s England Tests against USA and Canada. If so, you can be sure Jones will berate the media for bigging up the player prematurely (conveniently forgetting few would have mentioned Smith had England not picked him as an 18-year-old before he had featured in a game of senior rugby). It’s a long way to the top if you want to ruck and maul but a little rejection en route can help.