The Grateful

It's been a rocky road to the top for Tom Willis, but the Saracens and England forward is now steamrolling everything in his path

- words ALEX SPINK // main pic RODRIGO VALLE/GETTY IMAGES

YOU COULD see it on his face.

First in pre-tour camp in Surrey, then on the Pampas plain of Argentina. The band was not back together but two key members of the now-defunct Wasps club were. For Tom Willis, it felt good.

"Unbelievable to work with him again, absolute legend," Willis said of Lee Blackett, formerly his head coach.

"Some players you just have a special bond with," Blackett added. "Tom is one of those." Together they took Wasps to the 2020 Premiership [now PREM] final and tantalisingly close to becoming English champions.

Together they attended the meeting two years later at which they were among 167 players and staff made redundant as the club disappeared into oblivion.

Three summers on, the pair are at the top of the English game: Blackett, treble-winning coach of Bath and co-architect of the national team's unbeaten summer; Willis, the No 8 hailed as England's best forward by Lawrence Dallaglio.

To fully understand Willis's journey back, you need to start in that room at the Wasps training ground where jobs were lost, careers ended and grown men reduced to tears on what administrator Andrew Sheridan called a "dark day for English rugby".

"It hurt Tom a lot," recalls Blackett. "He had grown up around the club, had played week in, week out alongside his brother Jack and mates he'd come up through the academy with. He was brokenhearted.

"The number one thing with Tom is he's loyal, by which I mean the ultimate team man. He cares about people. He's the type of teammate that will give you everything, one of the very best human beings you'll find.”

Willis is today preparing for a new campaign with Saracens. He is 26 and an established international. Shortlisted for Premiership Player of the Season in May, the best of times have followed the worst.