Nowell leaves Wasps feeling sick
Jack Nowell shook off the effects of pre-game illness to help Exeter Chiefs to maintain their fine form in this season’s Aviva Premiership.
The England international admitted after his side’s latest top flight win over Wasps that he had been ‘sick’ and ‘feeling rough’ just hours before he claimed a try double for the Devon club.
For Nowell, the win not only saw Rob Baxter’s side momentarily move to the summit of the Premiership, but it also ended his own 19-month wait to score a first team try. Ironically, his last Premiership try came against Wasps in a 37-24 win at Adams Park back in April 2013.
Since that time the 21-year-old back has scored for England and Exeter’s second string in the A League, but he was pleased to end his drought on Saturday.
And he said he may now start to stay out on his flank more in the future.
“I have a problem staying on my wing and sometimes I’ve strayed off my wing and Damo (Damian Welch) has dived in the corner or Sladey (Henry Slade) has dived in the corner,” said Nowell. “I am trying to get the balance between trying to get my hands on the ball all the time and when it’s best for me to stick on the wing. I got both my tries by sticking out on the wing so perhaps I’ve learned a lesson from that.
“The thing is I would rather be setting up the tries, breaking through the middle and getting my hands on the ball as much as possible and have the other boys scoring the tries.”
However, just being out on the pitch was a major plus for the young Cornishman, who by his own admission was struggling in the build-up to the game itself.
He added: “I woke up in the morning feeling rough, I didn’t have the best night’s sleep and was sick all morning, I didn’t eat anything but I wouldn’t miss the game for anything, I love playing at home and I wanted to help us continue our win from last week.”
With Saracens at home next on the agenda for the in-form Chiefs this Saturday, Nowell is hoping he and his team-mates can continue their impressive run of form against another of the division’s leading lights.
“A big thing for us was to talk about our win a few weeks ago against Harlequins and maybe took our foot off the gas a bit and didn’t play our game,” he said. “That was a big thing for us in training, we wanted to keep going forward from the Northampton win and we definitely performed the way we should perform.
“We’re going to try to not take our foot off the gas, we want to keep building on this game. Saracens are a very different team, but the way the crowd are with us at the moment and the way we’re playing is really good and we need to keep going forward.
"We want to be towards the top of the table and the way we’ve started off the season is definitely better than seasons before. We want to continue our form and carry it into the next game.”
Wasps, though, played their part in a decent encounter and Nowell was quick to highlight the threat they posed to the Chiefs on the day.
He continued: “They offered a real threat and we know all their dangerous players, we know they can perform anything from anywhere, we’ve seen that in the past from guys like Christian Wade and Varndell – the wheels those guys have got are pretty phenomenal.
“The big thing for us was to cut that out and really go for them hard and take our opportunities when they came.”
