Jake Polledri: ‘Being rejected by Bristol spurred me on even more’

Gloucester’s Jake Polledri, who faces Munster this weekend, is a flanker who slipped through England’s fingersTalent-spotting is not an exact science, particularly in rugby. Some players develop late or fail to tick the obvious physical boxes, others are crowded out, not least in England, by the sheer weight of numbers. How many hidden gems might have worn the red rose had they not been injured at the wrong moment, been given more time to mature or been born in a different postcode?For whatever reason, the number of good players slipping through England’s fingers seems to be rising. This week,…