Nowell set for Scottish test

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs winger Jack Nowell is confident England can return to winning ways when they face Scotland in this afternoon's Calcutta Cup clash at Murrayfield.

After a narrow defeat to France in their opening Six Nations encounter a week ago, Cornishman Nowell has again been included in an unchanged England side by head coach Stuart Lancaster.

A week after making his full international debut in Paris, the 20-year-old is keen to get his country's campaign up and running with a big performance north of the border.

"I am just as excited as I was last week for my first cap," said Nowe.. "Again it's another big game and another big test for me, but I'm really looking forward to getting up there and playing on Saturday."

Like England, Scotland suffered defeat in the opening round as they went down to Ireland in Dublin. However, Nowell says England can ill afford to take their rivals lightly, particularly on home soil where they are notoriously tougher to overcome.

"A bit like us, they are a team that want to play," explained Nowell. "They have some real dangerous players, people like Stuart Hogg who I came across with Exeter this year in the Heineken Cup. He's a guy if you give him space and he gets ball in hand, he can be very dangerous. He's not the only player, though, they've got guys like Maitland and Lamont as well, but again we have done a bit of work on them and we'll see how it goes."

For Nowell and England, the key focus is not that of Scotland but instead making sure they are in tip-top form and are able to eradicate the little errors that creapt into their game last weekend.

"Last weekend was a massive disappointment for us and we were gutted with the outcome because we knew as a team we played well," added Nowell. "The coaches have said it and so have we, that was one of the best attacking games that we have had, but it was the odd silly mistake and a few things thatt didn't go our way that cost us in the end.

"We know if we can get things right, play the rugby we know we can play, then we have a great chance this weekend. As I said, we just want to go out and focus on this game because it's another big game and another big test which, if we get the win, opens it all up for us again."

But whilst Nowell will be taking to the field in Scotland, back in Devon his Chiefs team-mates will themselves be gearing up for a crunch Aviva Premiership clash with high-flying Northampton Saints.

Although away from Sandy Park, Nowell knows the importance of the fixture and is confident Exeter can prevail in his absence.

"It's a massive game for the boys," he said. "The last few weeks the boys have put in some massive perfomances, especially at Worcester last week, so I'm confident the boys will go well. Getting back into the Premiership and winning again is huge for us, especially after the run we had before the cup break, but at the same time you have to look at the fixtures we had during that time.

"We played Toulon back to back, we had Harlequins at Twickenham, Wasps away, they were tough games and in a lot of cases just narrow defeats. I'm sure now the boys have got a few wins behind them again, they'll really look to attack this game and look to build more momentum. I'll certainly be excited to see what the end result is from the game once I finish up in Scotland."