The four word tweet from England hooker Cowan-Dickie that has blown up

Departing Exeter Chiefs hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie has taken to Twitter to share his thoughts with a four word tweet that has sparked heavy debate with his followers and rugby fans.

The 29-year-old, who is currently sidelined with injury and is expected to miss the start of England's Six Nations campaign, tweeted after Exeter's loss to the Bulls in Pretoria which was marred by a controversial red card to centre Henry Slade.

Shortly after Slade's red card, Cowan-Dickie tweeted out "how soft is rugby" which quickly garnered over 100,000 views as fans piled in to reply to the England hooker.

Cowan-Dickie didn't stop there however, happily replying back-and-forth with a few fans over his views in a welcome display of direct player-fan engagement.

Some of his replies were crafted with humour, as one South African fan hit out at Cowan-Dickie with "sour grapes" to which his response was "I don't like grapes."

A fan was prepared to bring up Cowan-Dickie's chop tackle technique, which some fans think is dangerous, but the reply by the Exeter Chief shut the fan down quickly.

He wrote with self-congratulating humour: "Text book I think they call it" with a green tick.

The England hooker showed no fear about getting into it with upset fans, responding to one complaint with "this for real?" before claiming a yellow was the maximum penalty under the current rules.

"It's to reduce head contact, something that will help you when you are older" another fan wrote, referring to the Slade incident.

Cowan-Dickie responded: "But the impact to the head was minimal as he hit shoulder first no? Again I agree rules need to be in place, I just feel it's too much at the minute"

One Bulls fan went at him about the Chiefs performance, calling them '"lucky" to be in the game and not "very good" to which Cowan-Dickie insisted he was making a general statement, not about the Chiefs-Bulls game.

The reaction to the Slade red card was generally critical with many believing it was not worthy of a red.

Former England international and The Rugby Pod host Andy Goode led the charge and labelled the call "ludicrous" and "never a red", which was a view shared by many fans.