Jack Nowell is determined to go one better this season as Exeter Chiefs look to bounce back from their Premiership final loss to Saracens.
The Chiefs suffered a 27-10 negative to their rivals at Twickenham and since then Nowell has undergone surgery on damaged ankle ligaments, this after his partner Zoe gave birth to their daughter, Nori.
Now new father Nowell is looking to get back to full fitness during the off-season.
“It’s going very well,” he told Exeter’s website. “My operation actually got put back a week because my daughter was born the day I was due to have surgery, so I had it the week after instead.
“Now, we’re ticking along nicely and I’ve got the physios looking after me. For the first couple of weeks it was a bit tough, I was in a cast and I wasn’t actually allowed to do anything, but it kind of really gave me the chance to sit down, relax and take my mind off everything.
“I’ve now had a few weeks of training and I’m back into it. I’m really looking forward to getting the protective boot off and then getting back fit again and giving it a good go. I am doing everything I can to try and be available for that first game, but we’ll just have to wait and see how things progress.”
Exeter kick off their Premiership campaign at home to Leicester and when looking back to their final defeat, Nowell maintains the club are in an excellent position to move forward this season.
“If we compare ourselves to two years ago, when we lost to Sarries in the first final, the look of the boys in the changing rooms after the game in May was much different. We were all absolutely gutted and I’ve never looked at our squad and seen us in that position before. It hurt us a lot,” he said.
“Already this year you can really feel a sense of urgency from the boys. We are ready to go again. Even though we’ve just started pre-season, the boys are training hard and they’re really flying into it. We’re excited for the games to come.”