Ex-England winger opens up on his one big rugby regret

Cross-code star Denny Solomona has spoken of his frustration that his England career ended at five caps.

Solomona was capped by England within a year of his £200,000 transfer from Castleford in rugby league to Sale Sharks in rugby union in December 2016.

As a finisher of the highest order, the Auckland-born winger promptly announced his arrival on the Test stage with a match-winning try on debut in Argentina in June 2017, following Marland Yarde, Jonny May and George Ford over the whitewash.

But while Ford went on to become an England centurion, Solomona made just four more Test appearances, the second Test in Argentina and three in South Africa a year down the line.

“I was competing with Anthony Watson, Jonny May, Elliot Daly, all at their peak. They were playing Lions, playing really well at their clubs and consistently for England. It was tough as they were growing up through England, they’d done all the U18s and 20s together,” says Solomona in the current issue of Rugby Journal.

“It was probably just the wrong time, the wrong everything really, but that’s nothing against those guys, they were all playing amazing. I’d never say I should have been playing in front of a certain person, because every one of them had their own right to play in that jersey.

” I realise now that you have got to take every opportunity, and unfortunately, I might not have done.

“I had a goal, but I wish I’d reframed my goal, because once I hit it, it was like there was nothing else to achieve and that’s no fault of anyone else but myself.

“I became an international rugby player. That had been my goal for the longest time. Once I had played for England, I didn’t know what was next.

“That was a mindset that I had, that’s what killed me; maybe I should have made it my ambition to be the best England winger. That’s my only regret in rugby, not being able to shift that mental goal that I had.”

Solomona had a brief spell with the Highlanders in Super Rugby before returning to live in the UK, where he now coaches Orrell in England’s lower leagues.

Once runners-up in the league to Bath, Orrell became one of the many victims of professionalism and tumbled down the rugby pyramid. They now participate in the Lancashire and Cheshire leagues.

Solomona is a week shy of his 32nd birthday but has no desire to lace up his boots again. Coaching the black and ambers, though, has helped to reinvigorate his love for rugby.

“Through coming here to coach, I feel like I have found a bit more respect and passion for the game,” he said in the eight-page feature interview.

“I’ve always had a kind of love-hate relationship with rugby, because I have done this for so long, it is all I ever knew.

“From taking a step back and then going back into rugby with Orrell, it’s kind of rejuvenated that whole reason why, as a young kid, I started playing rugby in the first place.”

Read the full Denny Solomona interview in the new issue of coffee-table print quarterly Rugby Journal, available to order now by clicking here >>