Nowell injury blow for Chiefs

By Mark Stevens
24/3/22

Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter remains hopeful that Jack Nowell will play again this season after breaking his arm on duty with England in the Guinness Six Nations Championship.

The 28-year-old Cornishman was forced off during England’s final fixture against eventual winners France in Paris.

Now, following scans on the injury, the news that Baxter and the Chiefs had been dreading has been confirmed with the winger likely to be sidelined for anything between eight and ten weeks.

“It’s a broken bone in the arm, which is obviously hugely disappointing both for Jack and ourselves,” said Baxter. “At this stage, it’s looking at being at least eight to ten weeks, but we will just have to wait and see.”

The Chiefs have also taken the option to carry out surgery on a thumb ligament injury – which was due to take place in the summer – as this has a similar recovery period to his broken arm.

“If we get to the latter stages of the Premiership, say the semi-final and final, then there is a value to getting all this done. What we have got to do now is move on and get on with the important thing of winning games and collecting points, and potentially there’ll still maybe an opportunity for him to feature in those big games later on.”

The loss of Nowell is certainly untimely, particularly as the Chiefs also lost Luke Cowan-Dickie to a serious knee injury during England’s Six Nations clash with Wales at Twickenham.

"It is frustrating, but it's a difficult one because you want good players in your team, good players in your side and good characters will get picked for their national teams," Baxter added.

"This one in particular feels really unlucky because he's actually been bopping along this season without too many issues. A broken arm is kind of out of the blue, that's not overloading, that's not playing with an injury, it's one of those things.”