Exeter’s grand slam-winning wing Jack Nowell will miss the top-of-the-table Premiership fixture at Saracens on Saturday because his club still feel it is too risky to play him on artificial pitches. The England three-quarter has had a long-standing knee issue and is enjoying a break in Dubai rather than preparing for the game at Allianz Park.
Nowell also sits out away matches at Newcastle for the same reason, although the Exeter head coach, Rob Baxter, says he would probably have been rested anyway in the wake of England’s intense Six Nations campaign.
Exeter are two points ahead of second-placed Saracens with five league games left, with the lock Damian Welch close to making his first-team return after a three-month absence.
Leicester in fourth place are poised to lose their back-row forward Mike Williams for the rest of the season after scans suggested the player has broken his left arm again, three months after it was fractured during a game against his former club Worcester. “Mike has a suspected re-fracture of his arm and that is probably the end of the season for him,” said Leicester’s director of rugby, Richard Cockerill.
“It’s just bad luck. Maybe he could be back by the end of the season if we get into late play-off action but we will just see how the pain is. With a re‑fracture you would tend to be more conservative.”
The lock Mike Fitzgerald will also miss the Easter Sunday fixture against Sale with a torn buttock muscle and the prop Logovi’i Mulipola has received a one-week ban for a high tackle on Saracens’ Marcelo Bosch. England’s Dan Cole is expected to return to the front-row, however, with Leicester’s captain Ed Slater available again.
World Rugby, meanwhile, will delay confirming the 2019 Rugby World Cup pool seedings until next year, rather than conduct the draw three years before the event. The precise timings will only be finalised at the governing body’s council meeting in May but it is understood the seedings will now reflect the 2017 Six Nations Championship results, among others.
Last time around England, Wales and Australia all ended up in the same pool after Wales were nudged out of the top eight of the world rankings just before the draw was held. Ireland, currently ranked seventh with five Tests against South Africa and New Zealand to come this year, are among the nations who would prefer the 2019 draw to be conducted at a later date.
