‘Ships in the night’ Jack Nowell and Manu Tuilagi bond over England injury woes

Jack Nowell and Manu Tuilagi may pass like “ships in the night” when on England duty, but they have still developed a strong bond amid the shared misery of injury.

Nowell has battled back from a broken arm in time to take part in the three-Test series against Australia that begins at Perth’s Optus Stadium on Saturday, when he is expected to line up on the wing.

Tuilagi, however, misses the tour completely because of knee surgery that has written another painful chapter in a stop-start career ravaged by repeated spells in rehabilitation.

Both players have been only sporadically available to England, robbing the team of two hard-running gamebreakers who have since turned to each other for support in dark times.

“Manu’s in a similar position to me in terms of his injures. I speak to Manu quite a lot,” Nowell said.

“When we’re in camp I quite often room with him, our partners are quite close and our kids are a similar age as well.

“A few weeks before we came out here I went up to see him to see how he’s getting on. I quite often speak to the Chief.

“He’s always one of the first people to text me when he hears I’m injured at club level and vice versa.

“During the Six Nations we laughed quite a bit because we were always missing each other. We kept saying we were like ships in the night.

“We were both lined up to play in the Wales game together, but he was injured on his last training day. We kind of both know what we’re going through.

“A lot of the lads that are fit all the time and are lucky enough to stay injury free don’t really get that. When you’re in that unfortunate position and see the darkness of it…it’s quite tough.”

At the start of the season Nowell made changes to his lifestyle, including quitting alcohol to help