Sam Simmonds, back-row for England and Exeter feels that his decision to move to France following the World Cup was the right decision for his career.
This move will extinguish the British and Irish Lion from England contention.
“I knew that by making the decision to play abroad you wouldn’t get selected for England. However, I felt that I was focused on the now and here,” he said to BBC Radio 5 Live.
“I feel like that I can still have such a positive effect in an England shirt and such an effect for the next twelve months in an Exeter Chiefs jersey, and I feel at peace with that decision.”
Simmonds has scored 80 try in 119 games for Exeter set the regular-season record for his Premiership tries in 2020-21 season.
He was controversially not selected by Eddie Jones for England at the time, Warren Gatland was kind to him despite his physical condition. a place in the Lions squad that toured South Africa, He won the Test cap in the last game of the series.
He has become a regular member of Jones’ teams, playing in every Six Nations game this year and starting two England matches this fall.
“There are many players who will be coming up behind my and I felt that it would be the right time for me to make a choice for after the World Cup for a new life, for my family, and for me, to experience that. I have loved my time in Exeter, but nothing outside of Devon,” he said.
“I feel that it was the right choice at the right moment and we’ll watch how it turns out.”
Exeter leaving is a tough decision
Simmonds will move to the club where he made a debut in an Anglo Welsh Cup match at London Welsh as a teenager.
He has been a key player in the Premiership’s two Premiership titles as well as a European Champions Cup.
He said that he was not able to turn down the chance to travel to France, but he believes it was a unique opportunity.
“Just because a contract was available to me at that time, now, and let’s say I decided against it, and decide to stay, who’s going to know in two years, or whenever my contract expired, if any contracts were still available?
“These are difficult decisions, no matter what people might say. I’m moving from everything I know.
“But it came at a right time to make that choice, and who’s going to know in a year if a contract anywhere in the world would be available for me in England, France, or anywhere else?
“We’ve been watching what’s happened in England recently, so it’s something I’ve thought about, but I felt the need to make that choice.”