Captain Cowan-Dickie relishing new role
By Mark Stevens
7/12/21
Exeter Chiefs star Luke Cowan-Dickie says he is ready to ‘fire into Europe’ this weekend after making a successful return to action in last weekend’s Gallagher Premiership win over Saracens at Sandy Park.
The England and British Lions hooker had been sidelined since injuring his ankle in Exeter’s away win at Wasps back in October – but thrust straight back into the fold by Rob Baxter, the Cornishman did not disappoint as he scored one of his side’s two tries in their 18-15 triumph.
Cowan-Dickie powered over from a close-range line-out drive to help put the seal on the win for the Chiefs, who had earlier claimed a first half score through winger Tom O’Flaherty with Joe Simmonds kicking the remainder of their points.
The victory meant the Chiefs were able to make it back-to-back wins in the top flight, having secured a priceless win at lowly Bath the previous week.
With the Chiefs now set to put the Premiership on the back burner until New Year’s Day when Bristol Bears are the visitors, Cowan-Dickie says it’s imperative he and his team-mates focus their attentions to the Heineken Champions Cup and their impending clashes with Montpellier this Saturday and Glasgow Warriors a week later.
“Coming into the Saracens game, we talked about trying to leave the previous weeks behind us,” said Cowan-Dickie. “Obviously, we’ve got boys back, we’ve got big games coming up and the team looks strong, so we have to take confidence from all of that.
“We knew Saracens would be physical and come at us – and that we would need to stop them at first phase. They are a quality side and if you give them front foot ball, then you are going to struggle to stop them. Thankfully, we got into them from the outset, stopped a lot of what they wanted to do – and then put our own game on them, which was good.
“Obviously there are a few things we can still work on and we’ll talk about that in the week, but a lot of what we did was very good and now we’ve got to use that to fire into this next week.
“It’s a change up in competition, different opposition, but it’s going to be a good challenge for us.”
Certainly, Montpellier will pose formidable foes in this European opener, particularly given their form in the Top 14 where they currently sit third with seven victories from their 12 league starts.
Last Saturday saw Cowan-Dickie handed the captaincy role for the first time in his Chiefs career – and the all-action forward is expected to continue in the role for the visit of the Frenchmen.
“Rob asked me about it on the Tuesday and, to be honest, it’s not something I had looked at before,” he explained. “I’ve been here ten years now and I know these boys really well, so it was pretty special to lead them out.
“Add to it all, it was my first game back from injury, we were playing Saracens, I was just buzzing for it all. Before the game I just asked the boys to work hard, act fast and really go after things, which is what we did.”
Baxter has spoken recently of the growing maturity he is seeing within a number of his senior players and Cowan-Dickie certainly falls into that bracket, particularly given his experience with England and the Lions in the past year.
“The Lions tour was massive for me,” he added. “To go there and play in all three Tests, it was special and it’s helped me quite a bit. As I said, I’ve been at the club now for a long time and I’m not one of those young guys any more. Now, it’s up to me to pass on some of my knowledge to those guys and look to help them.”