Simmonds Brothers

Sam was a 30-goal-a-season striker (for one campaign) and Joe found the rigours of life at Torquay United ‘too serious’. Luckily, salvation was found in rugby, at Teignmouth RFC, where two Simmonds brothers had already tore it up many years before.

More than ten years ago Teignmouth’s most-famous sons did a homecoming that attracted 40,000 people to the seaside town’s ‘Green Flag award park’ The Den. Rock supergroup Muse grew up in Teignmouth, formed in Teignmouth and, having become one of the world’s biggest rock bands on the planet, returned to Teignmouth with two gargantuan back-to-back gigs, the like of which Devon has never seen before.

Above the bar at Teignmouth RFC, Muse also have a place, with their logo emblazoned across a framed shirt from the side they once sponsored, the colts. Sam Simmonds, who would then have been fourteen, slightly too young to be in their core demographic, remembers the gig. “Yeah, I think my mum asked if I wanted to go, but I wasn’t really bothered at the time,” he says, understanding now the slight error of his ways.

This is a homecoming for him too, together with his brother Joe, they’re returning to Teignmouth RFC, where their father Dave and uncle Rob played, and where they both played, and where, even now, they still return whenever they can. “This year has been a bit tougher to get back,” explains Sam, sitting just by one of two honours boards bearing his dad’s name. “But Joe would probably come down more often than me.” “I’d come down most weekends when I’m not playing to be fair,” responds Joe. “My best mate plays down here still, and his dad is always down here too.” “They’re Teignmouth through and through,” agrees Sam, “they love it. It’s fun to be around here though, you get to hear all the stories about our dad and uncle, what they were like as players, what they were like on the piss.”

As homecomings go, this is a modest one. Due to lockdown, sadly, one of the few places with enough space and lack of people to carry out a photoshoot in Teignmouth, is the rugby club, which has been opened especially for us. Yet, the achievements of the brothers – at least in the context of European club rugby – are every bit as impressive as those of Muse. Since they were both last in the club, or even since anyone was last in the club, they’ve become Premiership and European champions, Joe has been the captain throughout and Sam has been named European Player of the Year.

Had their first trip to the club been on a matchday though, both brothers reckon it would have been just as relaxed as it is today. “I’ve known these people for years and it’s just nice to come down and for it be normal for us down here,” he says, “nobody asks anything of us.” “They don’t care,” agrees Sam, meaning it in the nicest possible way, “that we’re playing for Exeter and doing great things, it’s just a normal conversation, it’s ‘how are you?’, ‘how are your family?, ‘how is everyone?’ We’re Dave’s sons down here.”

Did you see your dad play? “We were too young,” says Joe. “We saw our uncle play though,” says Sam. “He was like Chabal, just running around belting things. He was never allowed to play though.” “He’d tell our auntie he was walking the dog and he’d get down here and someone would throw him a pair of boots and he’d be on the pitch,” explains Joe.

Sam followed in his father and uncle’s footsteps by playing in the backrow, but Joe is the black sheep of the family. “Yeah,” laughs Joe, “they were annoyed when I was a ten that didn’t like to tackle. I did try and play backrow though, in my first year here I played a game away at Topsham.” “I don’t know where Joe got the ability to play ten from,” considers Sam.“ Dad was probably like me, and Rob was like a brute.” “I think there were a few DVDs of Dad and when people talk about him, they say he was similar to Sam,” says Joe, “he never passed the ball and wanted all the glory – just like Sam.”

Both brothers started their sporting career in football and were comparative latecomers to rugby, not starting until their teens. “I was always playing football,” says Joe. “I played for Torquay United but I fell out of love with it really, it was all a bit too serious. When I was thirteen I wanted to play rugby so I could enjoy the social side, all my mates were down here. “It wasn’t a great team, we lost most games, but I got to play with my mates.” “I do remember coming to watch some of your games,” says Sam. “I mean you all loved it, a lot of the coaches were dads who loved being involved, but you weren’t very good were you?” “Terrible,” responds Joe.

“To be fair our team wasn’t great,” admits Sam. “We had one big year in the colts but other than that we were pretty ropey, but I loved playing. And, once you got to colts, you had the social side and the beers.“ When people talk about the past, they always say ‘that was the best time in your rugby career’, and I do look back now and think how good it was – being able to play with your best mates. Whereas now, the better players at fifteen or sixteen, are now are all involved in academies which is good, but you don’t get that experience and that fun because you’re always trying to perform at the best level. Everything they do is about pushing on and performing at the best level and impressing selectors. “I was pretty happy that I was able to play amateur rugby up until the age of eighteen,” continues Sam, “it was unbelievable.”

Both brothers started their football careers up front. “I saw myself as a striker,” says Joe, “then I was in midfield, and then, like you, I ended up at centre back, there was something going on.”

“We had some good players in our football team,” says Sam. “One of them was a striker and when he got picked up I took his place and I scored 30 goals or something, but after that I worked my way down. “You had one good year at Devon schools,” offers Joe.“ Yeah, at centre back, but I was on the bench, I didn’t play.”

Their sporting lives are far from symmetrical. While Sam preferred team sports, Joe would play anything and everything. “He would play golf, badminton, table tennis, he would try anything,” recalls Sam. “He’s still good at golf. What’s your handicap?”

“Officially I’m back up to eight,” says Joe. “Although I think in the new handicap system its two.” “Joe is gutted one of our best mates who is a good footballer and plays for Teignmouth is officially better at golf than Joe, Joe thinks he cheats, he’s off six.” “He hits the white ball into a bush and out comes with a yellow one,” laughs Joe, before switching to his brother’s game. “You tried golf in the summer...”

“I want to be good at golf,” says Sam, “but it frustrates that I’m not and I can’t justify paying all this money to only sack it off after two holes. There are quite a few boys that aren’t great and have fun but that’s not for me, I’m not spending four hours hitting balls into a bush.” “I remember we played this tiny pitch and putt course once, and you only ended up playing four holes and then giving up,” laughs Joe. “I just spooned a lot of balls,” answers Sam.

At rugby, which Sam balanced with football, he began to get recognition at a county level almost immediately, which spurred him to give it a nod ahead. “I got trials for Devon rugby which swayed it for me, I was getting some recognition,” he says. “I was tiny for a backrow and didn’t feel I was playing that well, but someone was ill in the Devon team and I got in – played for them at under-15, under-16, and then captained under-18s. ”After breaking into the Devon side, he chose to study at Ivybridge College, renowned for bringing on rugby players, with Dave Ewers, Sam Hill, Steffon Armitage and Ben Moon among the alumni. “I was there two years and got to play A-league and LV=Cup games for Exeter and they offered me a contract just after my 18th birthday,” he explains. Not that it was a foregone conclusion. “I didn’t think I’d get a contract,” he admits. “I remember saying to my friend that I might have to go to uni or work with my step-dad who was a carpenter or with dad who was a fisherman. “Actually, nah, I wouldn’t have gone on the boats,” he admits. “That’s not for us. Look at the weather now [pouring with rain], imagine being out in that for eighteen hours a day on a boat pulling in pots.”

With both his mum and step-dad and dad all still living in Teignmouth, Sam and Joe are influenced by all three. “They’re good friends,” Sam says of his mum and dad,“ but we live at our mum’s, and all three of them have had a huge impact, whether it’s been taking us to games, just coming to watch – they’ve always been there since the start, football and rugby. We’ve got to give them massive credit, including mum, because she always moans that we don’t mention her enough. ”Who takes after who? “I think Joe looks like Dad,” says Sam. “People say I look like Mum.”

Dad never pushed them to play rugby. “He loved any sport,” says Sam, “he loved football too, he just had that competitiveness. But once we did go down the rugby route, I think he was proud we chose rugby because as a father you want your kid to follow in your footsteps don’t you?” Joe also chose Ivybridge, but was able to make an early break in senior rugby, for Teignmouth first team, at seventeen. “For my confidence it was a big boost for me,” he says of playing for Teignmouth. “At seventeen, it was a scary time because you’re playing with men and telling adults what do, but it was quite nice at training though – the coach would take me out of contact.”

“Real ten that,” laughs Sam.“We won the league and cup that year,” says Joe. “Your first double,” says Sam. When Sam was training with the first team at Exeter, Joe was playing for Devon when he first got invited up to train with his brother, well not quite. “You were on the other pitch at Topsham weren’t you?” says Sam, referencing the second training ground, a short drive away from the main one. “It was an outreach group which doesn’t sound great, but the training was savage wasn’t it?” “Yeah,” says Joe, “it was training for the boys they want to put in with the first team in case we messed up the training sessions, so there were boys on the fringes and a lot of university boys.

“But then I got to play against Bath in a pre-season friendly and they signed me there. I got man of the match and Rob Baxter came up to me in the showers with a sheet, it was the first contract, like an apprenticeship.

“It wasn’t full, I had to do work on the outside as well.” “Didn’t you do labouring?” asks Sam. “Yeah I cut the grass at the club for a year. I was playing rugby but cutting the grass too. I did my graft.” Sam’s graft saw him play rugby across the west county before establishing himself at Sandy Park.

“I was supposed to be going on loan to Taunton in National Two, but they said they didn’t want me so I played for Brixham in National Three for half a season, it was like playing colts rugby but with men – the bus trips were massive, everyone steaming.

“I was at Exeter but playing amateur rugby, which I loved,” he continues. “The year after that I played for Plymouth in the Championship and had my best season, I was nineteen and playing against ex-Premiership players and Worcester, they were unbelievable.”

A less successful stint at Cornish Pirates – together with fellow Chief Stu Townsend – followed before he was recalled. “I got to play in the LV=Cup, played well in both games, then started next two Premiership games – that was the year we won the Premiership. At the beginning of that year, me and Stu [Townsend] had been on the bench away to Bedford and then he was starting the Premiership final and I was on the bench, unbelievable.”

Sam had established himself, just as his contract was coming to an end, and also doing it at No.8. “Early on I saw myself as seven because I was smaller and always told I could be that player over the ball,” he says, “but as soon as I started playing eight and learning off Tank [Thomas Waldron] I wanted to be an eight. He was bigger than me but he wasn’t taller, he was heavier, he wasn’t a man mountain, but it was the way he got himself in the game that I learnt off him. He was always on the ball, scoring tries, and I wanted do what he was doing, that rubbed off into my game.”

Joe had also spent time in west country rugby houses, but had spent the Premiership-winning year as a travelling reserve, so always at close proximity as his brother made his mark. “I played for Taunton, but after ten games they called me back and I played against Clermont away – both me and Stu came on, we did quite well and scored a few tries,” says Joe, referencing the 48-26 defeat. “That game was dead at half-time, wasn’t it?” says Sam, referencing the 34-0 half-time score.

Joe went back out on loan to Plymouth before being recalled for his first Premiership game at Newcastle. “I remember getting a text from the boys, saying Joe had made his debut, in the 79th minute – he played in the Premiership before me.”

Joe’s full debut came against Saracens in 2018, where the then 22-year-old kicked four penalties in helping Exeter to a 24-12 win. “In interviews they always go on about that Saracens game, when I was man of the match,” says Joe, “it was a good start, but the difference was I still had a legend in front of me, in Steeno. ”Sam is quick to highlight how his brother was the first to really challenge the Irishman.“

Sladey had a few games at ten, and he’s an unbelievable player, but maybe not a ten, maybe he’s better at centre, I think he sees that now. Joe was the first one to take the reins from Steeno.“ Joe does attack the line,” continues Sam, assessing the battle for number ten, “but with Sladey when he’s ten, he carries too much and you don’t get other people into the game so much.

When he goes to thirteen though, he’s in the game more and his passing and kicking comes so much better – his passing rate is unbelievable.”

Just as Joe took over from Steeno, Sam took over from Tank. “Tank was always a bit annoyed if I was playing but that’s just competitiveness, he was the ultimate competitor he wanted to play all the time, so did I, so does everyone.“

I remember one game when I was picked and he didn’t speak to me, but then he texted me later to say ‘sorry mate that’s just how I dealt with not being picked’, but after that it was healthy competition that brought out the best in us.”

Steeno was a positive influence on Joe too. “He’s helped me through everything, with kicking, playing my games, and the good thing is now he’s on the coaching staff, he’sdefinitely been a big feature.”

Sam has been impressed by the veteran fly-half too. “He genuinely added a couple of years to his career by learning how to tackle,” says Sam.“

He will admit it as well, but he was terrible at tackling – he was a turnstile – but he put so much effort into training, into making tackles, that he became a very good defender.“

He was smoking boys in games, big carriers as well, and I think that held Joe off even longer. Steeno could tackle and could kick his goals and didn’t miss. That added a season on his contract.”

“If I’m playing until he did then I’d be very happy with that,” adds Joe, “it’s a credit to how hard he’s worked over the years to stay fit.”

Both brothers have played big roles in Exeter’s rise in recent years, especially seeing them usurp Saracens as England’s champions both at home and in Europe. Being double champions they know the work has only just begun. “People will target us,” says Sam,“ not that they haven’t in the past, but we’re double champions now, so this is a team everyone wants to turn over, so it’s probably a bigger task for us now.“

I said it to the boys, ‘last year was a massive year for us, but this is probably even bigger’ because you don’t want to be the team that wins the double once, you want to keep on progressing and leave a legacy.”

That they’re doing this together makes it unique, not that they’ve always loved each other’s company. “We have been close,” says Joe, “we were competitive growing up and that brought the best out in us.“

We fight when we live together though, we’re now living apart and that has brought us closer.”

“I think that’s because when you spend too much time with people,” begins Sam. “Well, we were seeing each other all day, then driving home together, then living in the same place – it got on top of us. We didn’t enjoy spending time with each other, we didn’t speak to each other, but I think it just shows, when you get on pitch, the emotion is there.“

One of the reasons I love playing for Exeter is that Joe plays as well. I think in the future, if we weren’t at the same club, it might be different.“

But those moments when you walk out together, when you do a moment’s silence together, or after a try is scored, it’s just so different to celebrate with your brother than your team-mates, which is also good, it’s just extra.”

Are there any moments that stand out? “My moment is before every game,” says Sam. “Joe was captain last year and he’d walk out first so I’d walk behind him. And I’m not superstitious or anything like that, but it’s something I like to do every game now, it makes it all real, it makes me think before the game, ‘this is unbelievable that I’m doing this and we’re doing this together and we’ve been able to do it in really big games’.”

“And defensively we line up next to each other too,” adds Joe, “playing each game together has been brilliant.”

As a backrower, does he feel even more responsibility to look after his ten? “I try to,” says Sam, ‘but he hits as good as he gets. He’s improved as a defender a lot, he looks after himself, and with him being a leader I have to look towards him now.“

He’s the guy that steers the ship, that puts us int he right places, that kicks the goals, it’s moved from, in the past me looking after him, to him being the guy that has his say and I have to listen to him.”

“Which is nice,” pipes up Joe.

Did he expect the captaincy? “I didn’t see the captaincy coming at all. On the Monday morning the team sheet came out and I saw a big ‘C’ next to my name, I thought they were just joking at the time.“

I was pretty nervous but after that first game – Glasgow away – I did enjoy having it. As a ten for me, I do a lot of meetings and say a lot anyway, so nothing changed.”

“This isn’t age-grade rugby either,” says Sam. “He’s 23 and captain of people ten years older than him, but that’s the respect he’s gained from those players and how he plays and what the coaches think as well, they could easily have picked a player like Sam Skinner or Sladey, but they picked Joe.” “For me it’s just making sure I perform and let actions do the talking,” says Joe.“That’s the best way to lead,” agrees Sam, “you don’t have to be this guy that talks all the time, some people don’t like that.”

“I’m the person that doesn’t like people talking all the time,” says Joe. We look back one more time, on what Sam describes as the ‘weirdest season there has ever been’.

“With the Saracens thing, it could have put us off because there was a load of pressure on us,” he says. “As soon as that happened, everyone in media said, ‘well, this is Exeter’s year’, so that can have a negative effect on a team. “At the same time, the other team could have been thinking, ‘we couldn’t beat Saracens but we can beat Exeter’. Then we had Covid and that time off could have done for us too. But they worked incredibly hard, Rob was always telling us we would be starting the following week, and I think we came back in the best shape out of any team.”

Are they bitter about Saracens at all? “Saracens was talked about, but not in a ‘we feel sorry for ourselves’ kind of way,” says Sam.

“I don’t think we can blame Saracens [for not winning last year’s Premiership],” says Joe.

“We had a chance in the final, didn’t we? We were all over them and could’ve beaten that side.” “There was never a bitter side of it,” says Sam, “we just had the motivation to carry on to do a better job than we did last year and beat the side in front of us.“

And aside from that moment five minutes from time [when Wasps made a hash of a lineout in a prime scoring position] I never thought there was any side that could stop us.”

“I was very nervous then,” says Joe of the lineout moment. “Having lost a Premiership final, I was thinking ‘what if we lose it? But, as soon as Jonny got that lineout...”

“I thought we were done,” admits Sam.

They weren’t, and now they start over again. As we go to print, Sam has just recorded his fifth try in two games, just topping his brother’s points tally of 21, and Exeter are two for two.

Both are playing because they have failed to somehow catch the eye of Eddie Jones, again.

“I was a different player than I am now,” says Sam, comparing his seven caps from 2017 to 2018 with his game today. “I feel I'm playing better now, and more experienced, and I’d love to get that chance again, whether it will happen I don’t know. “It was tough to be told I wasn’t in the squad, but I did feel more for Joe really – to have such a good year and, I think, behind Farrell, he’s the second best ten in England at the moment, so for him not to get the opportunity is tough, but we can only do what we’re doing.”

“I think it’s a bit different for me,” says Joe,“ becauseI’ve never been in that environment, so I’ve never experienced it. I’d love to play for my country, but I’ve just got to do well for Exeter. Jacob Umaga had a good year and got in the England squad, so I’ve just got to keep being consistent and playing well.”

Sam also has the experience to think practically about selection. “It’s also one person’s view on how they want you in the squad, that’s the tough part,” he says. “Whether you feel you should be in or not, or however good a season you have, it’s down to Eddie who picks the team.“

And Joe did get a call,” he adds, offering his brother a positive. “Eddie phoned me and I took it as a positive because I never spoke to him before,” says Joe. “So for him to phone me and tell me I’m not in, I have to take it as a positive, because he’s obviously thinking about me and looking at me. “So, while it was frustrating at the time, it was good for me looking forward.”

What did he say? “It was a bit of a weird one, because we were on a social and I was pretty drunk at the time. He just texted me to ring him, and then he said he’s happy with how I’ve been playing this year, keep on improving and that he’s just not picked me in this squad. Short and sharp.” “He is short and sharp with what he tells you,” nods Sam.

“What did you get?” asks Joe.“He basically said, at the moment I don’t fit into his squad and how he sees me, and how I play for Exeter, doesn’t fit into his team. “Which is,” he pauses, “he’s honest, at least he’s honest, but yeah it’s frustrating because...... I don’t know there aren’t many better years you can have than when your team wins the double are there? But I’ll keep working...“And, that is quite tough to take, but at least we get to play for Exeter.”

Words by: Alex Mead

Pictures by: Sam Bénard

This extract was taken from issue 12 of Rugby Journal

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