‘I’d bite their hand off’ – Jack Nowell still hopes for Lions call as he admits to missing international rugby
Jack Nowell reflects on La Rochelle's defeat to Leinster in the Champions Cup last season and reveals that he still has Lions ambitions.
Christmas in Jack Nowell’s world and the sun shone, the kids played on the beach and there was something the England rugby star’s mum wanted to know.
“You guys are going to move home when you finish, aren’t you?” Louisa asked La Rochelle’s Cornish-born winger.
Nowell had just come out of the sea. He looked at the Bay of Biscay sparkling in the midday light and felt the warmth of Île de Ré, the picture postcard island on which he lives.
Living the La Rochelle dream
“It was like 16 degrees, a stunning day,” he recalls. “Me and my wife looked at each other. We were a bit like. ‘Er, we haven’t discussed anything yet, mum’!”
Nowell is living the dream. At 31, he plays for a club which has been champions of Europe in two of the past three seasons and last weekend enjoyed its 100th consecutive sell-out. A recently signed contract extension keeps him at Stade Marcel-Deflandre until 2027.
“Île de Ré is beautiful, the way of life incredible, slower, a lot more chilled,” he explains. “My oldest daughter Nori is six, coming up to seven, and already pretty fluent in French. She’s always correcting me: ‘Daddy, it’s not said like this, you say it like this’.
“I put a lot of my success in rugby down to the fact I’m able to switch off. I’m so thankful for what the sport has given me and my family, but here I have nothing to do with rugby in my house, no shirts hung up, no balls lying around.”
As idyllic as this is, Stade Rochelais are 14 points off the pace in the Top 14, having won away just once all season in the domestic league. It is a cloud on the horizon.
They did edge past Toulouse at home last weekend, but les Rouge et Noir basically fielded a second team and Nowell’s ever-demanding boss, Ronan O’Gara, said it felt like a defeat.
“It’s a difficult time, we need to change the atmosphere,” the Irishman insisted. “I’ve got to change my management, we’ve got to change our mindset.
“The players and I have to give more. If we want to win the Champions Cup year after year, we need to work harder and forget the past. It’s time to turn the wheel.”
Facing Leinster
Trouble in paradise would be an exaggeration given La Rochelle have won their first two Champions Cup games, but Sunday sees them play Leinster in the most eagerly awaited match of the season.
These clubs have become massive rivals, and not just because O’Gara is a passionate Munsterman. They have met in the knockout stages of the last four tournaments, La Rochelle winning a semi-final and two finals.
But the last time, nine months ago, saw Leinster romp to a 40-13 quarter-final victory.
“We haven’t mentioned that match too much,” says Nowell. “We don’t have to. We let ourselves down massively at the Aviva. To have 40 points put on us and come away with a defeat like that, firing only a few shots of our own, was humiliating.”
Humiliation is a strong word but, evidently, not too strong for a club intent on building a dynasty.
“Ambition flows through the whole club,” continues Nowell, a Red Bull athlete. “You see so many teams win one trophy then the next season either really struggle or don’t make finals again.
“This team won back-to-back Champions Cups before I got here and since arriving I have seen no complacency at all. That certainly comes from the coaches but the players all say the right things as well.
“Last year we got to a semi-final in the Top 14 and a quarter-final in the Champions Cup and I sensed a massive disappointment among the players, coaches, president, everyone.
“It was actually good to see. The last thing I want is to be at a club which has two trophies in the bag and is happy with that – to be with players looking at their retirement plans or the next stage of their careers. I am here to win games.”
Missing international rugby
Nowell picked up two Premiership titles and a Champions Cup with Exeter Chiefs, won 46 England caps and toured with the 2017 British and Irish Lions.
The Rugby Football Union’s policy of not selecting from outside the domestic top flight might have ended his England career but there are no such restrictions on Lions head coach Andy Farrell this summer.
“Does a Lions tour to Australia appeal? 100 per cent,” Nowell says. “If somebody came to me and said ‘We want to pick you for a Lions tour, do you want to come?’ I’d bite their hand off.
“I’m fully aware there are very good wingers and centres playing very well back home and I’m certainly not expecting anything. At the same time, I want to play well and I want to win the Champions Cup. We do that as a team, you certainly get looked at.”
Nowell was back at Twickenham in November to watch England play South Africa and admits that for the first time since moving to France he missed not being involved.
“Not the week building up to Test matches,” he says. “But being back at Twickenham, seeing the boys walk off the bus, the warm-ups, the anthems. You can’t recreate that feeling of an international game.
“I’ve not come out and said I’ve retired [from England] and I’ll never say never. I don’t think you can ever say no to pulling on that shirt and playing in that atmosphere. I certainly won’t. I’ll still be up for it at 40.”
Check out Jack’s Red Bull athlete page
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