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Exeter issue Luke Cowan-Dickie update amid Six Nations injury fears
Exeter hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie has given new England head coach Steve Borthwick an injury scare four weeks before the Six Nations opener against Scotland.
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Cowan-Dickie limped off nursing an ankle problem after scoring two tries in the Chiefs’ 35-12 Gallagher Premiership victory over Northampton at Sandy Park.
Exeter head to South Africa on Sunday ahead of next weekend’s Heineken Champions Cup appointment with the Bulls in Pretoria.
“He has rolled his ankle and I am not quite sure where he is at,” Exeter head coach Ali Hepher said.
“But to get him off the pitch, it must be pretty sore, so we will obviously assess where he is.”
Chiefs’ Scotland international full-back Stuart Hogg, meanwhile, is battling to overcome a heel injury that has sidelined him for the last two Premiership games.
“He has got a bruised heel,” Hepher added. “He tested today, he tried to run on Monday and today, but didn’t look too great.
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“It (South Africa trip) is obviously a quick turnaround and we can’t take the whole squad out there. We just need to make a quick call on that and get a good read on it pretty early.”
Exeter’s bonus-point success saw them climb three places to fifth after first-half tries from Cowan-Dickie, number eight Sam Simmonds and wing Olly Woodburn put them in control.
“The conditions were so bad it restricted what you could do, but tactically on the whole we were superb,” Hepher said.
“That was the reaction we wanted. We are a young improving side and we got a lot of learnings out there.”
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Centre Henry Slade also scored, while fly-half Joe Simmonds kicked five conversions, with Saints restricted to tries from Fraser Dingwall and Matt Proctor, plus a George Furbank conversion.
Northampton, though, once again underlined a chronic lack of consistency, suffering a comprehensive reversal just six days after crushing Harlequins 46-17.
It was their fourth defeat from the last five games in all competitions and they must now regroup for fierce Champions Cup examinations against Munster and La Rochelle.
Saints rugby director Phil Dowson said: “We were so poor in so many areas and inaccurate. We didn’t get it right today and we need to work out why.
“We showed some bits, but it was too little, too late.
“Inconsistency is the biggest challenge, trying to find it. We were really good last weekend and we were fairly inaccurate and poor this week.
“We didn’t lack energy or effort, there were just lots of mistakes.”
Dowson, meanwhile, said that England forward Courtney Lawes is closing in on a return after suffering a glute injury last month.
“He trained towards the back end of last week with the non-playing squad and got through all that,” Dowson added.
“Hopefully, he will be in the mix for selection (against Munster next weekend).”
Comments on RugbyPass
While Iose is destructive in the Canes set-up, he is not big for an international 8 and could struggle against the top teams. With his speed, he could be developed into a seven but, as Ben points out, he doesn’t show a scavenging game with the Canes or make dominating tackles. Sotutu has shown a step up this year and attitude plus motivation seems to be the big areas of growth. Deserves another AB shot imo.
3 Go to commentsNaholo is my only question mark for this side. He wasn’t the only one who had a forgettable game against the Brumbies but he was passive, defensively poor and generally lacked energy. Needs to get a whole lot busier for me. I would have liked to see Sullivan on that wing with Higgins on the bench (if staying with a 6-2 as BeegMike points out on here!)
3 Go to commentsWell, I am sure that Eben said exactly what he meant to say, exactly how he meant to say it. Does he strike you as a man that doesn't know arrogance when he sees it. He should know it because he has shaken the arrogance out of many foes before.
128 Go to commentsPls get it into your thick arrogant heads that the final was played by two Southern Hemisphere teams. The best against the best and that Argentina was just unlucky otherwise non of the Northetn Hemisphere teams would have seen the light of day.
128 Go to commentsAs long as New Zealand youth are involved in sport they are passionate for, and are well supported, it’s all good. I love league as well as rugby. NRL clubs have long since scouted the First 15 competitions, the NH and Japan scout super rugby and NPC. It’s a miracle there’s any players left for the all blacks to pick from.
4 Go to commentsI'm a Bok fan, so I don't say this lightly, but he is one of my all time favourite players. I am really going to miss watching him play. Thanks for many great memories. You are a true legend of the game.
3 Go to commentsBest way to deal with all of this is to play another game.
128 Go to commentsIt’s 12-15 games Luke. Ringrose has barely played in 2024 and Henshaw and Keenan have also been out for spells in the same time period. There are always injuries and for younger players to play with the likes of Barrett will be great for them. It’s just looking for negatives where there are none.
5 Go to commentsAndy Goode pushing his own agenda with very dubious considerations on refereeing performances. Luke Pearce speaking a bit of French doesn’t make him a good and adequate referee for the Champions Cup final; his latest refereeing performance in particular was not so great.
4 Go to commentsJordie knows that he has to earn the right to put on the jersey, whatever that jersey might be.
5 Go to commentsThe best outside centre in the world at one point. He will be greatly missed.
3 Go to commentsYip his great for the big moments when needed as a safa really enjoy watching him
4 Go to commentsOne that will start to come up from now on is penalties for back pushes during kick chase scrambles. Very difficult to detect. In Croke Park if you replay the Hendy NH try, you will see Furbank push Porter in the back, who collides with Larmour knocking the ball across into Hendy’s path to dot down. A more significant example was in the RWC QTR final where Arendse pushes Fickou into two other French players for the ball to spill into Arendse’s path for him to gather and run in to score SAs first try. Not cheating if you are not caught and very difficult to spot but with kicking becoming so critical I feel its an area that will referreeed/TMO-ed more.
4 Go to commentsWhat a pathetic little twit Andy Goode is, as if we care what he thinks…..😂
128 Go to commentsFoxy has been a wonderful player for the Scarlets and Wales.
3 Go to commentsNika the Georgian is the best referee in the world at the moment. Luckily we will be spared the shite SH refs and Barnes will hopefully remain retired given how shite and embarrassing he was at the RWC.
4 Go to commentsThis is the most exciting game of the summer imo, as we really won’t know in advance how both teams are going to play. - Will Robertson just reproduce his Crusaders tactics from last year, or will there be a conscious effort to borrow from the Hurricanes and Blues, and from the aspects of the ABs world cup strategy that worked well? - England under Borthwick have put in some good performances playing attacking rugby, and some good performances playing kick-oriented defensive rugby. Will Borthwick try to merge them together into a single all-court game, or will he continue switching between different approaches depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition?
1 Go to commentsI’m predicting an aggregate points difference of no more than +/-10pts across both matches this series.
1 Go to commentsI’m predicting an aggregate points difference of no more than +/-10pts across both matches this series.
9 Go to commentsFinals are always tense affairs for the players so I do not expect this to be a spectacle of running rugby unfortunately.
4 Go to comments