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'Nice side of sport': The England pick who has beaten the odds
By Liam Heagney
It has been quite the 21 weeks for Ollie Chessum in between visits by England to Dublin. Last March, head coach Steve Borthwick delivered the disappointing news at the SAS Radisson St Helens that the nine-cap youngster would need an operation to mend the ankle seriously damaged on the training ground that week.
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Now after a summer of sweat and toil in rehab, he is set to play off the England bench back in Dublin and prove his fitness just in time for the Rugby World Cup. Perfect.
The 22-year-old had been in line to start his fifth successive match in the Guinness Six Nations earlier this year but instead of lining out against Ireland in the championship finale, he was left facing a race against time to be fit for September’s French adventure.
“Ollie dislocated his ankle on Tuesday afternoon and has subsequently seen specialists and had investigations,” explained Borthwick grimly at the time. “He will have surgery on Monday and his return to play is estimated at somewhere between five to six months.”
It was March 16 when Borthwick announced that prognosis for “a guy who looked at home at Test level”, putting his potential return at anything from mid-August – borderline for World Cup selection – to mid-September, which would be too late as the tournament would be into its second round of matches.
Chessum had told Borthwick straight away not to write him off. “I was chatting with him Thursday morning and the determination he has to be back on the field, back in an England shirt, is quite immense,” added the coach when delivering the injury news last March at a Six Nations round-five media briefing.
Since then, Chessum has been part of the England squad every step of the way this summer, named in their injury rehab category on June 12 and training the whole way through.
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He was still listed among the injury rehabbers when Borthwick named him on August 7 in the squad of 33 for the World Cup and now, having avoided all potential setbacks, Chessum was named at No19 when this week’s England Summer Nations team was confirmed at 4pm on Thursday.
New England assistant Richard Wigglesworth would have seen the early part of the Chessum recovery on the Leicester training ground in April when he was Tigers’ interim head coach. He is chuffed that the lock has timed his run perfectly for World Cup warm-up match selection.
“It’s the nice side of sport when you see someone put in so much effort and then get rewarded with an international spot,” enthused Wigglesworth after England completed their preparations to face Ireland with no captain’s run hiccups at Aviva Stadium.
“He has been incredibly diligent, has done everything he can to get back. Will it be perfect for him from the get-go? No. But has he done everything he can to put himself in that position? He has. Delighted for him. Incredibly impressed by him. He is raring to go.
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“The prognosis we were given then is that he would have a good chance (of being fit for RWC). He accelerated that with how well he recovered. Usually, there are setbacks along the way, and he has not had any. He has not had them.
“He was probably back a few weeks even before he thought he might be originally. There was always a chance, so there was that light at the end of the tunnel for him that he could give this a good go and he certainly has.”
It was late June in Cape Town when Lewis Chessum explained to RugbyPass the influence his older brother had on the career development of the England U20s captain. “I’d say my brother at this stage of my career is my biggest role model,” he enthused.
“Having seen what he has achieved in the period of time he has achieved it, how he plays as a player, how he is off the pitch, how he is around everyone, he is someone that I look up to massively. For my development, I probably wouldn’t be as far along the line as I am without almost competing with him as a young kid.”
