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'It was not good to see' - Luke Cowan-Dickie injury scare for England

By PA
(Photo by Visionhaus)

Luke Cowan-Dickie gave England cause for concern when he limped out of Exeter’s 27-23 victory at Wasps after rolling his left ankle, with Eddie Jones announcing his squad for the autumn internationals on Monday.

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Hooker Cowan-Dickie, who started England’s last two Six Nations matches this year and two of the Lions’ Tests in South Africa, was treated on the field for three minutes before leaving it unaided having landed hard on his left knee after a tackle and catching his ankle awkwardly.

Exeter head coach Rob Baxter said the 28-year old would have his ankle protected by a moon boot before being assessed on Monday, adding that it was too early to say whether he would be fit for England’s opener against Tonga at Twickenham next month.

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“It was not good to see Luke coming off because he is as tough as they come,” said Exeter’s assistant coach Ali Hepher. “We do not know anything at the moment and we will see how it settles down after the weekend.”

Exeter moved to third in the table with their third successive victory of the season, but they made hard work of it after talking a nine-point lead inside 25 minutes and looking comfortable.

“One of the things we have spoken about is not taking a breath and drawing back after we have put ourselves in a good position,” said Hepher. “It was something we lapsed into last season, not least the play-off against Sale and the final against Harlequins.

“We were disappointed with the way we played in the final 10 minutes of the first half and we talked about it during the break. The response was good: we showed a lot of fight and found a way to win. We are getting there after a slow start to the season but we have to back it up at the weekend against London Irish.”

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Man of the match Sam Simmonds, who took his tally of tries to 10 in his last 10 Premiership matches, felt Exeter made it hard for themselves after taking the lead.

“We sat back, thinking it was easy, but we should have known this is a hard place to come after our last two visits here,” the number eight said. “They can attack from everywhere but we were happy with the second half, although we should have had a few more tries.”

Wasps head coach Lee Blackett suffered more injury woe when hooker Dan Frost, making his first start for the club, was led from the field after being treated for more than five minutes for a knock to the head.

“We have had a few new arrivals having suffered a number of niggles, but I could not fault the effort of the side,” said Blackett.

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“They kept battling and while we conceded four tries, the defensive effort was such that it did not feel like that.”

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T
Tom 25 minutes ago
Has 'narrow-mindedness' cost Ribbans and others their Lions chance?

I didn't say anything regarding whether I feel the eligibility rule is right or wrong, you've jumped to conclusions there…


The fact is the eligibility rule does exist and any English qualified player is aware when they sign a foreign contract that they're making themselves ineligible and less likely to be picked for the Lions. If Jack Willis and Dave Ribbans priority was playing for England and the Lions they wouldn't be playing in France. Whether they should be allowed to play for England or not isn't my point. Under the current rules they have chosen to make themselves ineligible so they can't have their cake and eat it while other players have taken lesser salaries to commit themselves to their dream of playing for England and the Lions. They have made their choices.


Besides, while it works for South Africa doesn't prove it will work for any other country. South Africa have an extraordinary talent pool of incredible rugby athletes which no other country can compete with. They sadly don't have the resources to keep hold of them so they've been forced into this system. If they had the wealth to keep all their players at home and were still playing in Super Rugby they might be even better… they could be worse. We can't know for sure but cherry picking the best country in the world with a sample size of 1 and extrapolating it to other nations with very different circumstances doesn't hold water. Again, not saying the eligibility rule is correct just that you can't assume scrapping it would benefit us simply because South Africa are world champions.

17 Go to comments
I
IkeaBoy 1 hour ago
How Leinster bullied the Bulls at Croke Park

Expert coaches exist across the land and the IRFU already funds plenty. Ulster own their academy and who owns Ulster?


If you go to school in the North and rugby/tag rugby isn’t even on the PE curriculum until 12/13 as opposed to 7 or 8 in Leinster, how is that the IRFU’s fault? Even then, it’s only certain schools in the North that will offer it. On what basis would they go up to the North (strictly speaking, another country in the eyes of some) and dictate their schools programme?


The ABs used to be light years ahead of the pack because their eventual test superstars had been playing structured, competitive rugby from an average age of 5/6! On top of kicking it around the yard from the age they could walk with their rugby mad parents and older siblings.


Have you somehow gotten the impression that the Leinster system is not working for Irish rugby? What is that based on? The SARU should just stop competing because despite their back to back RWC’s, all 4 of their URC teams aren’t contesting semi-finals every year?


A couple of mining towns basically provided a Welsh team in the 70’s that were unplayable. Queensland in the old Super 10 provided the spine of an Oz team that were the first to win multiple world cups and in the same decade. The ABs population density is well documented with 35% of the population living around one city.


Is England’s match day 23 equally represented by mid-counties players, tough as nails northerners, a couple from Cornwall, a pack of manc’s and a lone Geordie? Ever?

It’s cute they won’t relegate the Falcons but has a Geordie test player ever hit 50 caps?


It’s ok not to understand geography. It’s also ok not to understand sport. Not understanding the geography of sport is something different entirely.

265 Go to comments
f
fl 4 hours ago
Ex-Wallaby laughs off claims Bath are amongst the best in the world

I ultimately don’t care who the best club team in the world is, so yeah, lets agree to disagree on that.


I would appreciate clarity on a couple of things though:

Where did I contradict myself?

Saying “Trophies matter. They matter a lot. But so does winning games. So does making finals.” is entirely compatible with ranking a team as the best - over an extended period - when they have won more games and made more finals than other comparable teams. It would be contradictory for me to say “Trophies matter. They matter a lot. But so does winning games. So does making finals.” and then completely ignore Leinster record of winning games and making finals.


“You can get frustrated and say I am not reading what you write, but when you quote me, then your first line is to say thats true (what I wrote), but by the end of the paragraph have stated something different, thats where you contradict yourself.”

What you said (that I think trophies matter) is true, in that I said “Trophies matter. They matter a lot. But so does winning games. So does making finals.”. Do you understand that Leinster won more games and made more finals than any other (URC-based) team did under the period under consideration?


“Pointless comparison on Blackburn and Tottenham to this discussion as no-one includes them on a list of the best club. I would say that Blackburns title season was better than anything Tottenham have done in the Premier League. My reference to the league was that the team who finished second over two seasons are not better than the two other teams who did win the league each time. One of the best - of course, but not the best, which is relevant to my point here about Leinster, not comparing teams who won 30 years ago against a team that never won.”

I really don’t understand why you would think that this is irrelevant. You seem to be saying that winning trophies is the only thing that matters when assessing who is the best, but doesn’t matter at all when assessing who is 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.


“What I referred to in my Leinster wouldn’t say the were the best is your post earlier where you said Leinster were the best overall. You said that in two separate posts. Seasons dont work like that, they are individual. Unless the same team keeps winning then you can say they were the best over a period of time and group them, but thats not the case here.”

Well then we’ve just been talking at cross purposes. In that my position (that Leinster were the best team overall in 2022-2024) was pretty clear, and you just decided to respond to a different point (whether Leinster were the best team individually in particular years) essentially making the entire discussion completely pointless. I guess if you think that trophies are the only thing that matters then it makes sense to see the season as an individual event that culminates in a trophy (or not), whereas because I believe that trophies matter a lot, but that so does winning matches and making finals, it makes it easier for me to consider quality over an extended period.

24 Go to comments
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