Joe Cokanasiga rediscovered his purpose after his World Cup squad omission according to his Bath director of rugby, Johann van Graan, who believes the resurgent wing’s England snub has allowed him to find his form again.
Cokanasiga, 26, was left out of England’s squad for the World Cup in France but has scored 10 tries in his last nine Premiership matches, including two against Sale on Sunday in a bonus-point win that moved Bath into second place in the table.
He was also overlooked for the Six Nations but spent the eight-week period working closely with Bath’s attack coach, Lee Blackett, and even played at centre in training in an effort to increase his involvement in matches and Van Graan is convinced the extra work is paying off.
“Go back to August and September time when he didn’t make the Rugby World Cup squad, we spoke about what are you good at and how do we make that better, what are the things you have been given to work on and how do you make that better, and the most important thing was Joe, why do you play rugby,” he said.
“Because he is such an incredible rugby player, he loves it. He has gone back to playing well, training hard, doing extras at training, improving his all-round game. We had a lot of good performances [on Sunday] but that was class from him. If you look at how his aerial game has improved, his defence with some of the hits that he has made. And look, he can finish. It’s brilliant to see him carrying the ball in one hand which is so unique to him. Look, it’s great to see him playing rugby with a smile.”
Cokanasiga’s last England appearance came during their ill-fated World Cup warm-up campaign and he has regularly found himself in and out of the national coach’s plans since making his debut in 2018. If he can continue his current form he will no doubt come into Steve Borthwick’s thinking for the summer tour of Japan and New Zealand.
“Lee and I spoke about making sure I improve [during the weeks off],” said Cokanasiga. “A lot of people can go through those off weeks and just wait for the games, but Lee spoke to me and said I need to find different ways to improve, whether that’s ball handling or getting myself in the middle a bit more. I felt like I did that. Lee and Johann picked me at 13 a couple of times in training, just to expose me a bit more and step up my game. That has helped a lot and given me a lot of confidence.
“Sometimes I sit and watch [England] but sometimes I prefer not to. When I’m at the club I just focus on the club. I watch it to support my mates, but then you look at it to see ‘this is the stuff I need to get better at’, so there is always that stuff you are taking away in the background. The gameplan is a bit different to what we do here at Bath, so it’s getting the balance right of not mixing the two together. Steve [Borthwick] tells you what you need to work on and you do that anyway. Once you’re in that environment, then you get used to the way [England] play.”
