When it comes to looking after players, they don’t do it much better than the Exeter Chiefs. The Devonians have a history of giving returning internationals the week off upon their return from the Six Nations or autumn series, while rotation remains a key part of Rob Baxter’s selection policy.
While Jack Nowell is joined by England teammates Henry Slade and Luke Cowan-Dickie in this weekend’s squad to face West Country rivals Bath – as well as Six Nations grand Slam winner Tomas Francis and Scotland’s Sam Skinner, the wing knows he can enjoy some family time with his feet up next week as Baxter has pencilled in some downtime for his internationals.
“I've got a little family in Exeter and you are very excited to get back, as much as I enjoy doing the stuff in camp you are excited to get back to your family and get back to the familiar things with your club,” Nowell tells The Independent. “We had a day. I did a bit of training on Monday, a strength and conditioning session on Tuesday so we're straight back into it.”
Even though Nowell, Slade and the rest of the pack are jumping out of international test rugby and straight into the furnace of a West Country derby, they would probably have preferred this weekend off – it would mean that Exeter would be playing next weekend and thus still in Europe.
But the truth of the matter is that Baxter needs his big guns this week instead. That Nowell has to immediately focus on a crucial derby this weekend probably helps a little to forget what happened last Saturday, as it will be a memory that those associated with England will not want to linger for long.
Though their Six Nations championship hopes were over, England were cruising to victory over Scotland when they took a 31-0 lead in just 30 minutes. What followed was one of the greatest comeback witnessed in international rugby, with Gregor Townsend’s side turning the game on its head by scoring 38 unanswered points before George Ford’s late converted try salvaged a draw.
But for England, the damage was done. The draw felt very much like a defeat and left a lot of the players looking at themselves, lost for words as to how it had happened again.
“It's a tough one,” adds Nowell in an attempt to explain what went wrong. “To come out of the first half 31-7 up, it definitely should have been in our hands and I think as a team we maybe didn't cope with the fact that when a team is that far ahead at half-time the other team were going to come back out and do things that they don't normally do in order to bring themselves back into the game.
“We've been in positions at Exeter before in both positions, where we've been losing and winning, where you don't stick to the game structure, you do anything you can to score a try or get more points. And I don't think we soaked it up enough. We soaked it up but then didn't fire any shots back ourselves and we let them keep coming, keep coming, keep coming. It wasn't until they were actually ahead where we said 'right we need to actually score another try here now'.”
After letting a 24-3 lead slip into a 42-39 loss against South Africa in the first Test of last summer’s tour, and then a 10-3 lead in Wales last month unravel into a 21-13 defeat, this latest setback rang very loud alarm bells for Eddie Jones and his side.
But Nowell is determined to use that negative as a positive to ensure that the same cannot happen in Japan later this year – when it will matter most.
“Given how well we'd done in that first half, we felt very in control and very confident with it and it's easier seeing it from the outside, but when you are in it it's a tough position to be in,” adds Nowell. “But saying that, at the same time playing for England this year has been one of my most enjoyable years on and off the field and I think apart from the second half against Wales and the second half against Scotland we played some very good rugby.
“It gives us something that we know we have to work on which is definitely a massive positive. Again, in a game where we'd been perfect, it would've been a bit harder for us to go to the World Cup and do it, but for us now it gives us something that we know we need to work on. We know we need to work for the full 80, it doesn't matter if we're 100 points ahead of 20 points behind, we need to do stuff in the second half that's going to make us win games.”
It all means that Nowell and the rest of the World Cup hopefuls must go away for the final two months of the season and prove that they are learning. That starts this weekend when Nowell will be trying to impress against the man who he reclaimed the No 14 shirt from in Joe Cokanasiga, the 21-year-old wing that by Jones’ admission will play a big part in his World Cup plan. Throw Jonny May and Chris Ashton into the mix, and the exciting Olly Thorley waiting in the shadows, and not one of them can afford to concede ground to the others when it comes to club or country.
“You look at Joe, the way he's been playing for Bath and the way he played against Italy, it's awesome to have someone like that in the squad,” he says. “Everyone knows what Ashy can do but it's good because as a team training together it makes us better. To be training with these boys pushes you every day definitely adds to your game.”
There will be someone else pushing Nowell’s game onto the next level. At 25 years old, Nowell is very likely to remain in the mix through the next World Cup cycle into 2023, where he will find himself playing alongside a new Exeter teammate in fellow British and Irish Lion Stuart Hogg. The electric Scotland full-back will make the move south from Glasgow to join the current Premiership leaders after Japan 2019, and he has already been getting into the Chiefs’ way of things by following Nowell’s example and dying his hair bleach blonde.
“I'm going to have to have a little word with Hoggy, I don't really know what's going on!” laughs Nowell. “I like it to be fair, he realises that if he's going to come down to Exeter next season he needs to start mixing it up a bit so I'm just glad some of the stick has gone away from me and gone to him.
“It's very exciting, you can see how he plays for Scotland and how he plays for Glasgow, he's a very dangerous player and I speak a bit with him as well. He's very excited to come down and play with us and to hear a player like that, who's that big a profile and that type of player that plays that type of game, being excited to come down and play with us is very pleasing for us as a team.
“I've met up with him a few times, he's been down here to see where he's going to live and trying to find houses, so I'm in contact with him quite a bit. I got on with Hoggy quite well in New Zealand and obviously have played against him the last couple of years.”
But talk of the World Cup, England selection and future arrivals must go on the backburner for now. Exeter have a home semi-final to lock down before trying to gain revenge over Saracens for last year’s Premiership final defeat – as well as see off the threat from whichever two sides join them in the play-offs – and Nowell will be a crucial part of that. That challenge starts back at home, at Sandy Park, immediately after the two-month slog of the Six Nations, and if the Chiefs emerge unscathed, only then can Nowell put his feet up. It will be the least he deserves.
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