In November 1999 an 11-year-old Joe Simpson was cheering on Rod Macqueen’s Australia, the country he was born in, to their World Cup final victory over France. Four years later, after representing England at youth level, he was rooting for Clive Woodward’s England in their momentous World Cup win over the Wallabies. Fast forward eight years and Simpson, now 22, has his sights firmly set on a place in Martin Johnson’s 2011 World Cup squad in New Zealand and an opportunity to write his name into the history books of rugby folklore.
Born in Sydney to a New Zealand mother and English father the London Wasps scrum-half now knows where his true home is. Ahead of his club’s St George’s Day fixture with Bath Rugby at Twickenham Stadium patriotism is something he now feels very strongly about – that, and fulfilling his undoubted potential – for the 2008 IRB World Junior Player nominee is nothing short of ambitious.
With electric pace the former England Sevens player and No9 tussling with Ben Youngs and Danny Care for the England jersey, has worn the red rose at every age-group to senior level in the 15s game.
Just after the heavens had opened and his expectant retriever Jessie was looking forward to a walk in the park Sport.co.uk's Sam Rider caught up with him to talk about his mixed allegiances, national celebrations, England competition and thoughts on how his ex-team-mate Danny Cipriani was routinely “crucified” in the press.
Good afternoon Joe. How was training?
Yeah not too bad. I’m glad that we missed the rain. I got in early to keep on top of things and ended up getting roped into conditioning in the gym and the pool and then more physio as well as analysis. So it’s been a long day.
We’re talking to you today ahead of the St George’s Day match between Wasps and Bath. You played in this fixture last year. Is there a special atmosphere at these club games at Twickenham or do you feel more at home at Adams Park?
I think Twickenham’s a very special stadium. Obviously it’s the home of English rugby and England’s the home of rugby. On a sunny day with a capacity crowd it is an unbelievable atmosphere which is part of the reason we want to have such a special day there. Moving away from Adams Park allows so many more people to experience that.
It will be England’s saint St George’s Day celebration but you were born in Australia to a New Zealand mother and English father…
Ah you’ve done your research.
We’re very thorough at Sport.co.uk. So do you have mixed allegiances?
When I was younger I used to get stick if England won anything so I would normally root for Australia or New Zealand. Then when I grew up and started representing England at different age groups, playing against the Wallabies and All Blacks, obviously my allegiances had to change. Now I’m very patriotic.
I like the whole St George’s Day atmosphere. That is one thing I think America are slightly better than England at, in sport, they have a real passion for their country. I think the Welsh and Scottish have it and I think that is one thing England could work on. I love that we’ve got a day for English people to celebrate and I think it’s important to be patriotic and love where you live. I’m thoroughly English now and it’s a privilege to play in the St George’s Day shirt.
Sorry, we’re still getting over you saying you used to root for Australia…in the 1999 World Cup were you cheering on the Wallabies??
…I think I may have been yeah. My allegiances changed around when I was about 15 when I started playing for England at youth level.
If our maths is correct you would have been 15 in 2003…that’s an interesting twist of fate. Cheering on Australia in 1999 and four years later when England won you switch your allegiance.
I’ve done well haven’t I? It’s worked out well for me.
Maybe England need a national drink akin to Guinness for Ireland to help unite the country on St George’s…
A national drink. What would you propose?
Well it would have to be a good bitter of some sort. A London Pride [Disclaimer: any English brewery beverages are applicable] or something. What do you think?
I don’t think I’m allowed to advertise or encourage any kind of alcoholic drinking…I’ll have a soda water and lime. [Disclaimer: please drink responsibly]
So looking at your career to date, before playing for Wasps you played with Blackheath Rugby Club [SE London] on loan.
I started training with Wasps when I was 14 or 15 and at school. When I became a full-time professional rugby player I tried to balance that with studies. Then I went on loan with Blackheath for a season and a half. It gave me game time and tough, competitive matches rather than just training. It helped me massively and I would really advise any youngsters coming through the system to do something similar. Although it was a mission to get down to Blackheath two or three times a week the experience was priceless. Mike Friday, who was a head coach there, the help he gave me personally and experience I gained playing in a stable side was a valuable one and one of the reasons I’m where I am now.
Were you always confident of making it at the highest level in England?
No. I never dreamt of being a rugby player when I was younger. I just loved the game, loved the sport and loved playing it with my friends at my school and club. When I got offered the contract I thought it was too good to turn down. I never like to fail at anything and I don’t like being second best so I worked hard, put in the hours and really gave it everything. My ambition in the game has always been if I’m playing professional rugby I want to be an international. I want to represent England at the highest level. I want to win trophies and achieve as much as I can if I’m going to play rugby. Luckily enough I’m part of the England setup now and things are looking quite hopeful.
You sound like an extremely ambitious person but do you feel this Wasps team in their current form can match your ambitions?
This season I think we’ve underachieved in the Premiership and had one bad performance in the Heineken Cup [losing to Glasgow Warriors] which cost us. It’s disappointing but as I remain at Wasps for the next few years that is something I hope won’t happen too often. I want Wasps to win. I’m desperate for trophies at Wasps – I’m desperate for trophies in general – but I’m desperate for them at Wasps. I think we have a fantastic team here and a good young team looking forward.
I don’t think it was possible for Wasps to carry on winning silverware every year. When you think about those Wasps teams that won the trophies they had brought through and nurtured a lot of their players and played together for years on end. We’re not a Leicester, we can’t go out and spend however much money we want and bring in an international in every position and on the bench; wage restrictions won’t let us. It is frustrating but I feel Wasps definitely has enough ambition and can fulfil my craving for success. It hasn’t happened the last couple of years but it’s good to see the fans still staying loyal. They aren’t just fair-weather fans. I do believe the success will come and when it does it will be so sweet.
In saying that you do still have the quarter-final of the Amlin Challenge Cup against Harlequins coming up. Does that take on greater significance now?
That’s our one real chance of success this season. We’ve got to focus on building some momentum in the league and then hopefully there are only two more games before lifting the trophy. That’s the goal and I believe we have the talent and strength in our squad to achieve that. We just need a few things to go our way.
Turning to England now. You mentioned you don’t like being second best but it appears you have Leicester’s Ben Youngs and Harlequins’ Danny Care standing in your way for the No9 jersey…
Well I’m not second best there; I’m third best aren’t I?
Not in our book Joe. So looking at those England scrum half options who would you say is the quickest?
I don’t like to be big headed but I would have to say myself. We did speed testing in the summer on an Astroturf being measured on a speed gate and I was second, narrowly behind David Strettle, over 10 and 40 metres. That was out of all the England backs so I think I would be the quickest of the three.
So that’s 1 point to Simpson. Youngs and Care on zilch. And who’s the best passer out of the three?
I think it varies. I don’t think that’s really quantifiable if I’m getting technical here. Everyone’s got a good pass on their day. There were a couple of wayward passes thrown in the Ireland match but that’s just part and parcel of being a scrum-half when it’s wet and you’re on the back foot. If your pack is going forward and you have nice, clean ball or it’s going backwards that makes all the difference. It’s a bit horses for courses really…and that’s a long-winded way of avoiding the question really.
Well sidestepped. We’ll call that a draw. Finally, in our attempt to pick three key facets of a scrum-halves game, who’s the best organisational player? Who’s best at barking orders at the dozy, lumbering forwards?
That’s quite a tough question as well. All three of us are very vocal and that’s a big thing for a No9. You have to be able to stick your nose into other peoples’ business and really boss those forwards about. We’re all very good at that. I’m lucky enough to boss around some world-class players. I get to tell Powelly [Andy Powell] and Payner [Tim Payne] and Shawsy [Simon Shaw] and all these players where to go. I get to shout at Serge [Betson] and tell him what he’s doing wrong so that’s something I feel privileged to do. When you’re young that’s quite tough but I think Youngsy and DC do that quite well. It’s fair to say Youngsy has the strongest pack in the Premiership in front of him so he has more of an armchair ride than DC and myself throughout the season.
We make that another tie with your pace edging it overall. But all things considered who do you think should be wearing the No9 jersey against Argentina in that first match of the Rugby World Cup?
At the moment Youngsy is the owner of the shirt. He’s had a good Six Nations. Against Ireland it was tough but every young player has slipups and the England team didn’t go well so you can’t blame it on him. I think he’s a great player. DC came on and had a very good game for England. I hopefully will be part of the squad, whether it be part of the 22 or just missing out. I want to be there pushing for a place and it’s up to me to really make these last six or seven games for Wasps really count. Those two are the holders of the No9 and No21 shirt and the order is clear at the moment. But it’s up to me to really push them.
Could you have ever competed in athletics with your natural speed?
No. I’ve got huge admiration for athletes. I was naturally gifted with running and jumping when I was young. My brother was the same and my mother likes to say we didn’t get it all from our dad playing rugby, but that she was winning medals for running when she was young so she likes to take some credit for our abilities. But when you’re training with the likes of Christian Wade or Tom Varndell there’s no way I would be able to compete with them physically if they were full-time athletes. They are just super fast.
Varndell, the amount of spring he has in his legs is just freakish. No matter how much training I did there is no way I could compete with him – and to think he may not be quick enough to be a sprinter. At the moment I would smoke him in a running race – because he’s on crutches. But when he’s back to full fitness I’d keep up with him for the first five but once we open up he’d just be cruising and he’d whoop me basically. Sometimes you just get people who are built for running – someone like Usain Bolt is a prime example. There’s no way I would get within 20 metres of him in a 100m.
Be good to get him on a rugby pitch, with his size as well…
You would just try and run round because he may be good running in a straight line but you’d hope he wouldn’t be able to change direction quite as quickly.
How do you train and exercise for that speed? What form of weights and sprint training do you do?
Huw Davies, our head of strength and conditioning, is big on doing movements you replicate on the rugby pitch. So we do explosive exercises. We throw weights in the directions you would handoff in a match or replicate the moves you would start off sprinting. We have days of building size, then strength. If we have a match on Sunday, on Friday morning we come in and do either upper body power, lower body power or pool power to build up your fast-twitch muscles reactions. Then we’ve also got our sprint coach to improve our technique. It’s an area a lot of teams have started to focus on because pace worries teams a lot more than size now. Teams worry much more about the quick guy than the big guy nowadays.
One of your ex-team-mates who was pretty quick was Danny Cipriani. Have you followed his matches with the Melbourne Rebels?
Yeah. They’ve been very up and down haven’t they? But some of their matches have been fantastic. You’ve seen Cips go from sublime to unlucky and unfortunate. I think you can see Cips enjoying his rugby. Some of the things he can do no one can do. It’s really positive signs for him and for English rugby. He’s only 23 and he’s one of the most talented players England have had for the past few years. I’m sure he’ll be back and I’m sure he’ll pull on an England jersey in the future because you can’t really say no to talent like that.
He is playing with a smile back on his face like when he used to be carving teams apart at Wasps. He had a bad injury that knocked his momentum and was being absolutely crucified in the press. That’s hard to take when you’re young. I try to read as few articles on myself as possible because you just want to concentrate on your game but when it’s so out there like it was with him it’s tough. I felt really sorry for him and you could see he lost some of his love for the game. It was very important for him to go to reclaim that love and now with him scoring a couple of tries you see he has his swagger back.
Well on behalf of the press we can only apologise to Danny and anyone else who feels they’ve been jilted. Now you’ve pretty much answered our last question [could England do with someone in his ilk in the No10 position?] so well done. Instead I’ll ask you what kind of dog do you have?
I have a flat-coated retriever.
Lovely. We had one of them, a black, flat-coated retriever.
Yeah they’re lovely aren’t they. She’s been at home and hasn’t had anyone take here out so she’s gone absolutely mental, running about the house. So I better take her out.
What’s she called?
Jessie, J-E-S-S-I-E. I can’t say W-A-L-K or else…
Haha. Yeah we know exactly what you mean.
Since we’ve been talking the rain has stopped so we can now go out without getting wet.
Well Joe, we’ll stop tormenting her and let you take Jessie out now. Thanks for speaking to us. It’s been great.
Thanks for talking with me. Sure we’ll speak sometime soon. Goodbye.
Wasps help to raise the flag for military charities this St George’s Day at Twickenham Stadium. The second annual St George’s Day Game between London Wasps and Bath Rugby will be staged at Twickenham Stadium on Saturday 23 April (Easter Saturday) and tickets are now on sale. Last year’s match attracted over 60,000 fans, and this year Wasps are once again using the fixture to raise funds for military charities.
Four special causes will be celebrated on the day, with Wasps donating £1 for every ticket sold to the charities. The match is being positioned as ‘A Game for Heroes’ with the club aiming to raise over £100,000 for charity. BLESMA (Limbless Veterans), the Parachute Regiment Charity, Combat Stress and SBSA (Special Boat Service Association) will all be involved in the match with a full programme of entertainment and activities in the West car park for all the family to enjoy
Tickets are on sale now by calling 0844 225 2990 or from ticketmaster.co.uk and are priced from just £15 for adults and £8 for concessions.
For more information on the St George’s Day Game please visit stgeorgesdaygame.co.uk
To read more from Sam Rider, our freelance rugby correspondent, follow him on Twitter @sam_rider