New father Rob Simmons has plan to avoid sleepy state that hampered final trial
ROB Simmons has paid tribute to wife Lucy, who is doing everything she can to ensure the Waratahs lock gets his sleep this week as he prepares for the Super Rugby opener just days after the birth of their first child.
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ROB Simmons has paid tribute to wife Lucy, who is doing everything she can to ensure the Waratahs lock gets his sleep this week as he prepares for the Super Rugby opener on Saturday days after the birth of their first child.
After revelations Simmons had fallen asleep while getting stitches to his head at Brookvale Oval in last Thursday’s trial win over the Melbourne Rebels - the same day his son William was born - the forward said he is coping much better this week.
“Better from last Thursday, that’s for sure, there was zero sleep there,” Simmons said.
“We’re trying to figure out what works for us, my wife’s been really good with that, she knows that sleep is important for athletes and she’s doing her best to do everything herself which is hard on her and it’s hard to watch, but I know it’s important as well.
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“I could feel it [during the Rebels trial], I can understand why they say sleep is so important for athletes now.
“It definitely affected me. I just tried to put my best out there, and I know it wasn’t my best, but it was the best I could give.”
Simmons, NSW’s new recruit from Queensland, will run their lineouts and is a key player for 2018.
His calling and jumping will be tested by Cape Town’s Stormers, who won their opening game of the season last weekend and have arrived in Sydney confident of disrupting NSW’s set-piece at Allianz Stadium.
But Simmons said while his fatigue played a factor in Melbourne stealing several lineouts from the Tahs last week, they’d deliberately kept many of their favourite calls in the bank so as not to tip off rivals.
“We wanted to put pressure on ourselves there - not that much pressure - but not take too many easy options and see where we’re at,’ Simmons said.
“We wanted to see where we needed to improve.
“We wanted to keep it simple, which also keeps it simple for the defence, we saw the result of that but we’ve got something to work on and we’ll be better this week.
“I knew it was always going to be hard [to play the same day as my child being born] but I knew it was important for the team and myself to play, it’s that last chance to play before round one and you’ve got to blow those cobwebs out and find out what you need to work on.
“You can train all you want in preseason, but the game is always different.”
Having left the Reds, who he won a premiership with in 2011, Simmons is determined to reinvent himself in Sydney this year.
“I’m back at ground zero, I haven’t proven anything yet until we get out on the field there in round one,” he said.
“And I feel like I’ve got to show the team what my worth is.”