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Exeter break their silence on the Jack Nowell misconduct charge
By Liam Heagney
Rob Baxter has opened up about the Tuesday afternoon revelation that Jack Nowell will face a misconduct hearing on Wednesday evening after he posted to his Twitter account his thoughts on last Sunday’s red card decision involving Olly Woodburn. Nowell didn’t play in last Sunday’s 62-19 defeat for Exeter at Leicester in the Gallagher Premiership.
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However, after seeing referee Karl Dickson adjudge Woodburn to have committed a yellow card offence when he slid into Chris Ashton after the Leicester player dived for the try line while tackled by Stuart Hogg, Nowell and two Exeter teammates who were also not involved in the game – fellow England internationals Luke Cowan-Dickie and Henry Slade – vented their feelings when a penalty try was awarded and Woodburn was sent off for a second yellow card.
Cowan-Dickie tweeted that “rugby had lost the plot” and Slade said “I have no words”, while Nowell added in a since-deleted tweet: “I’m actually in shock, like shock shocked. What the hell is happening? That’s one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen. EVER”.
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English Rugby HQ took umbrage with what Nowell posted to his 61,000-plus followers and he now has a case to answer following a charge of conduct prejudicial to the interests of the union and the game under RFU rule 5.12.
Ahead of the Nowell disciplinary hearing and before a separate hearing verdict revealed that the red card punishment was sufficient for Woodburn and that he was now free to play in this weekend’s league game at home to Bristol, Exeter boss Baxter spoke at his midweek media conference on Wednesday morning about the Nowell tweet and the Woodburn sending off.
Asked if he had to remind his Exeter players about their use of social media, Baxter admitted: “Well, yes, for obvious reasons with Jack’s citing. It didn’t come through until yesterday [Tuesday] for us, so it was coming through as I was getting ready for a players’ meeting and I just mentioned to them, ‘Look guys, just be careful. You know you have got to be really careful on these things’. That is all we can really say.
“Jack hasn’t done it with any intention of it being directed at the referee at all. At the end of the day, all he was talking about was the decision. It hasn’t been directed at Karl Dickson, it’s kind of directed at the game. That is where Jack has got it slightly wrong, but it has been done in a frustration at the laws of the game more than the referee.
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“You have got to (understand players in that scenario). This is not me saying that a player saying anything about a referee is fine. I’m not fine about that at all. We have a great reputation among the refereeing body. I have asked both Tony Spreadbury and Paul Hull if there are any issues with our players at any stage.
“All the feedback I get is that the referees enjoy refereeing the players, they never have any issues with them. We work very hard on that side of things. We expect to have a good working relationship with them. I make sure regardless of results all the referees would say I treat them very similarly after a game and make sure I shake their hand coming off the pitch. I don’t go after them on TV around contentious decisions.”
Baxter added: “As a club, I would like to think we have got a very good reputation but that is different to the game being questioned. I have said it myself as well. We are really one of the only games in the world that almost tries and makes the sanctions for things being the removal of numbers off the field. That is bound to cause frustration.
“People need to be aware it is good to have a debate on these things. I know for a fact there is going to be some debate around the Olly Woodburn situation because even refereeing departments higher up the chain are concerned with how you referee that scenario; how do you referee it when it is so different there to anywhere else on the field? So, they are worth debating without any doubt.
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“What you have to do is avoid the frustration which happened with Jack. Like I said, he has not gone after the referee at all. He was the captain when we played Bath and Karl Dickson was refereeing and the relationship was fine. There is nothing there. There is no malice intended at all.
“But I can understand the frustration with how a decision however technically correct it may be, surely it has got to be a frustration for all of us who have watched rugby for a long time that that scenario, Olly is just being a desperate, very good, flat-out rugby player trying to make something happen at the end.
“He is not intentionally doing anything illegal, he doesn’t hurt anybody, there is no head contact. He is doing everything he can to remain legal really but it’s an impossible situation to make a tackle. How does he influence that scenario? Well, he should be able to and yet he can’t, not legally, and we should debate that. There is nothing wrong with that and we should look at it.
“That is an entirely different thing to saying why we can’t talk about things in the game. It’s just like I said things about where we stand now around red cards around head contact. Even World Rugby are talking about looking at that scenario to make sure that decisions are made correctly, and we don’t spend five minutes debating a red card in the field that may have mitigation. The referee doesn’t need to spend ages looking at that now… These things are worth debating and we should be talking about them to improve the game.”
Nowell, who starred for Exeter in their Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final win over the Stormers, missed the Leicester league trip due to injury but he is on the mend and hoping that a suspension won’t now scupper his availability for the April 30th semi-final versus La Rochelle in Bordeaux.
“Jack is starting to shake off the knee, which is really good, really positive because he has been a big influence. He has got his hearing tonight. We will have to see how things pan out there. He is up and running around now and available,” Baxter added.
