Nowell: My sunshine cure has got me fit again
JACK Nowell almost completed a full preseason with Exeter Chiefs this summer for the first time in a long time.
Apart from catching Covid, that is, and needing ten days in isolation.
But now the Cornish flyer has spent five weeks on the beach in his native Cornwall with the sun on his tattooed chest and is firing for the start of the new season and his bid to reclaim his Englandplace.
Nowell, 28, has endured a torrid 12 months since helping Exeter win the Premiership and European double last October.
He played through the pain barrier and had an operation on a toe ligament injury before tearing a hamstring when on the comeback trail and suffering knee ligament damage.
“I honestly cannot remember the last time I did a full pre-season,” he says. “This time I did one day of training and got covid and had ten days off.
“So I don’t know if I class this as a full preseason. But it’s been good enough for me. The fitness feels really good.
“We get what most boys call a pre-pre-season with programmes that our strength and conditioning
coaches send us, and if I am honest, I did bugger all.
“I was down on the beach every day, I was in the sun, spent time with my family. Normally I am one that over trains a bit, but this time I decided I was going let my body completely relax.
“I wasn’t going to batter it. I haven’t done too many extras, and I feel in a pretty good place, to be honest.”
The Lions winger has had nine operations trying to keep himself playing at the top level, and each time doesn’t get a period to fully recover from the previous seasons’ exertions.
He explains: “How that works is you get to the end of the season, have your operation, then have ten days off with a cast on.
“You are straight back in on the eleventh day and are rehabbing straight away. So that is all the time you get off, but I haven’t been able to enjoy myself and go to the beach.
“I’ve always had an ankle cast on or a thumb cast, and I know I am back in within a week. But this time there was nothing wrong with me, so I got to do some stuff I wanted to do.”
This season, Nowell is keen to add to his 34 England caps despite not featuring in an Eddie Jones team since a personal World Cup nightmare almost two years ago.
An operation on an ankle injury suffered in the Premiership Final, a hamstring injury, and then an appendix operation saw him confined to just one appearance off the bench against Argentina.
He appears to be still very much in Jones’ plans after a discussion between them decided it would be best for him to have the summer off rather than play against the USA and Canada.
“I don’t want to look far into the England stuff. I’ve always said if you play well for your club, you will go on and play for England. I just want to put myself in that position.
“I had that nightmare of a World Cup camp. I am still pretty gutted about it. I haven’t put on an England shirt for a while, and that is something I am desperate to do.”
Exeter travel to Welford Road on Saturday to open their Premiership campaign against Leicester
Tigers with a massive point to prove after crashing to Harlequins in last season’s final.
Even though the subject isn’t banned, Nowell acknowledges that the Chiefs are trying not to revisit the ins and outs of the defeat.
But he agrees: “We have a massive point to prove. We feel we should have won the game against Harlequins. We weren’t the favourites because a lot of people wanted Harlequins to win.
“And they fully deserved to win it, but we felt we were good enough to win and had had a good enough season.
“We let ourselves down by letting Harlequins play all the exciting rugby.
“We sat back and took it, but that was last season, and we are trying not to speak about it too much. It’s a good subject to try and remember now and again.
“That game could have gone another way if we had done different things. We did things as a Chiefs team that we don’t normally do.”