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England's Jack Nowell suffers injury setback with Exeter
By PA
Exeter and England wing Jack Nowell has suffered a setback in his bid to recover from injury. Nowell has not played this season after undergoing surgery on damaged toe ligaments, with his last appearance being Exeter’s Gallagher Premiership final victory over Wasps in October.
Exeter rugby director Rob Baxter has revealed that Nowell “had another issue” as he got back into full training at the Chiefs, although he would not disclose details. “Unfortunately, Jack has had another issue as he has got back into full training, so it is going to be a little while before we see Jack,” Baxter said.
“At this stage, it is a bit early for me to give you the full extent of the injury. It is just one of those things. We kind of held Jack back for a week to give him a couple of weeks of full training. And unfortunately, later on in the second week, it was just one of those things he pulled up with another injury and now we are going to have to wait a little while longer to get him back to full fitness.”
Nowell won the last of his 34 England caps during the 2019 World Cup in Japan, while he toured New Zealand as a member of the 2017 British and Irish Lions squad. Baxter does not believe that Nowell’s hopes of making the Lions squad to face South Africa this summer will necessarily be affected by not playing Test rugby.
Baxter added: “He is a guy who loves playing rugby, loves training and getting on with things. Obviously, he has got some concerns that this probably means he won’t play international rugby this season and there is a British and Irish Lions tour at the end of this season he is desperate to be involved with. He is very aware of those things.
“Without doubt, I know the Lions management will be looking at players beyond just those playing international rugby, especially those who have played international rugby recently and only haven’t been involved because of injuries like this.
“I'm very aware his Lions selection will not only be decided on whether he has played for England and the only thing I can encourage him to do is stay energised and rehab well and come back strong and there will be enough rugby left with Exeter. Hopefully, we will be in those big games where he can showcase his talent. That is the only thing Jack can aim for now.”
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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