{"id":189598,"date":"2025-10-10T04:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/189598\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T04:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:00:12","slug":"luke-cowan-dickie-reveals-the-drunk-lions-star-who-got-the-wrong-hotel-the-3am-wrestling-bouts-in-sydney-the-celebrity-traitor-helping-players-why-the-r360-league-is-like-voldemort-and-how-sale-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/189598\/","title":{"rendered":"LUKE COWAN-DICKIE reveals the drunk Lions star who got the wrong hotel, the 3am wrestling bouts in Sydney, the Celebrity Traitor helping players, why the R360 league is like ‘Voldemort’ and how Sale Sharks are using AI to fire title charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The night after the final Lions Test in Sydney<\/a>, Luke Cowan-Dickie went back to his room and ordered a takeaway from Deliveroo. Burger, fries and a milkshake.\u00a0Opting for a chilled evening at his hotel, the 32-year-old left the younger members of the squad to cut loose around Circular Quay.<\/p>\n

Cowan-Dickie gave up alcohol<\/a> 17 months ago, but he still enjoys the morning debrief after a big night out. In this instance, he woke up to hear how his team-mate Alex Mitchell had caught an Uber<\/a> to the city\u2019s \u2018other\u2019 InterContinental in the early hours.<\/p>\n

\u2018There are two hotels in Sydney with the same name,’ Cowan-Dickie tells\u00a0Daily Mail Sport. ‘At the end of the night, Mitch got a taxi to the other one\u2026 where the Wallabies<\/a> were staying! That was quite funny. There was a fun bit of wrestling in the team hotel around 3am, too. But nobody mucked up too badly!\u2019<\/p>\n

Many of Cowan-Dickie\u2019s memories of the 2025 tour unfortunately arise from the golf course not the rugby pitch. He was concussed during the last warm-up game in Adelaide, ruling him out of the first Test. He could not force his way in so didn’t play for the final three weeks of the tour. But he still loved the experience.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Lions was mega for me,\u2019 he says. \u2018With my injuries over the last few years, I thought my chances of going were pretty slim, so I was buzzing to be selected.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was playing well out there but getting knocked out screwed me a little bit. I wasn\u2019t able to play for 12 days out of the last 20. I was fit to play in the second Test but I obviously wasn\u2019t selected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Luke <\/p>\n

Luke Cowan-Dickie is back at it with Sale and will return to action on Friday night against Newcastle Red Bulls<\/p>\n

\"'The <\/p>\n

‘The Lions was mega for me,\u2019 Cowan-Dickie tells Daily Mail Sport’s Nik Simon. \u2018With my injuries over the last few years, I thought my chances were slim, so I was buzzing to be selected’<\/p>\n

\"His <\/p>\n

His summer Lions tour was less than eventful though after concussion put paid to his hopes of making a Test appearance<\/p>\n

‘It was a weird one. They kept me out there, so you think there might be a chance of selection, but we wanted the series 3-0 so Andy Farrell didn\u2019t change the side.<\/p>\n

\u2018I played a Test four years ago, which made it easier. It is what it is. It meant I could go out and do more things, like playing golf, because I didn\u2019t have to focus so much on the matches.\u00a0We had small social groups out there and I was responsible for finding good food and coffee spots, making a list of how far away they are from the hotel.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tom Curry was on the finance committee. He was in charge of telling us about things like Lime Bikes; how if we pay-and-go it can be quite expensive, but if you get a monthly bundle then it\u2019s cheaper. He got everyone to chip in a hundred quid or so for some stocks and shares, an investment fund, Tesla – things like that. It didn\u2019t do well. We lost every penny!\u2019<\/p>\n

Almost three months have passed since Cowan-Dickie\u2019s last match against the Invitational XV in southern Australia. He has since spent a week in Greece during the off-season, before visiting his England team-mate Ellis Genge for more golf.<\/p>\n

Now he’s back in Sale\u2019s ranks and ready to go. But it is also true that he’s returned from Down Under with valuable insights. He namechecks prop Tadhg Furlong as one of his biggest role models from the tour, picking up plenty of tricks from the veteran Irish prop.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Irish lads were very good, leadership-wise,’ he says. ‘Tadhg is a very knowledgeable man and he can back it up. We had our phase shape, the way we want to play, and Tadhg was very good at getting everyone on the same page.
When you\u2019re getting up off the deck and you\u2019re knackered, as a forward, you\u2018re usually looking around to work out where you need to go. If there\u2019s already three forwards in the pod off the No9, then you know you\u2019re meant to be standing in the pod off the No10.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Tadhg would only go to where he\u2019s needed. He was hot on it, emphasising the importance of counting and numbering off. \u201cOne, two, three\u201d. Rather than working towards nine, then fanning back out when you realise you\u2019re not needed.\u00a0There\u2019s a lot of detail. The way you set up off each other \u2013 how deep you want to be or how flat you want to be. It\u2019s definitely something I\u2019ll bring back here to Sale.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Cowan-Dickie <\/p>\n

Cowan-Dickie tries his hand at cricket with the Lions in Melbourne back in July<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The hooker intends to use what he learnt Down Under to fuel Sale’s PREM season<\/p>\n

Back in greater Manchester, Cowan-Dickie has picked up from where he left off, enjoying yet another round of golf with Tom Curtis and Tom O\u2019Flaherty this week, ahead his return to action.<\/p>\n

The unlikely figure of Joe Marler has been overseeing the Lions players\u2019 playing schedules, balancing the responsibilities as Player Welfare Manager with his appearance on the latest series of Celebrity Traitors.<\/p>\n

\u2018After the tour, Marler sent through surveys on how we felt and what we need,’ Cowan-Dickie says. ‘He has the players\u2019 backs. When he does it, he is serious. He\u2019s trying to get us as much time off as we need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Here at Sale it\u2019s brilliant, but some clubs are terrible for it. As soon as you\u2019re back they\u2019re like, \u201cWe need you to play this game\u201d and before you know it you\u2019ve played every minute of every game for six months. It\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n

\u2018With Exeter, I played loads of times when I shouldn\u2019t have. That\u2019s probably why my knee is knackered. I\u2019ve had 14 operations. I reckon I had eight knee ops by the time I was 26.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘You can\u2019t really say \u201cNo\u201d when you\u2019re young, so it\u2019s good for someone like Joe to step in and take it out of your hands.\u2019<\/p>\n

On Friday night, Cowan-Dickie will return to action in Sale\u2019s northern derby. They are facing their \u2018noisy neighbours\u2019, the recently-rebranded Newcastle Red Bulls.<\/p>\n

In their meeting to kick off the week, Alex Sanderson stood in front of the team and used an AI-generated video to fire up his players. It went down well with Cowan-Dickie, whose ambitions for the season are to bring the title back to Sale for the first time since 2006.<\/p>\n

\"Cowan-Dickie <\/p>\n

Cowan-Dickie says the player care at Sale is second to none, while other clubs have a ‘terrible’ track record<\/p>\n

\"Cowan-Dickie <\/p>\n

Cowan-Dickie is aiming for glory with Sale this season.\u00a0\u2018If your team doesn\u2019t have ambitions to win, then what\u2019s the point?’ he says<\/p>\n

\"'It <\/p>\n

‘It would be amazing to make the next World Cup,’ says Cowan-Dickie, pictured here with Ellis Genge (left) and Will Stuart after England won the Calcutta Cup in February\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s always themes,\u2019 says the hooker of the start of the week meetings. \u2018Our little motto is \u201cTake the next step\u201d. For the last three years, we\u2019ve been there or thereabouts. It\u2019s just how do we go one step further?\u00a0Our first game was good, second game was OK and we have a few boys coming back.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2019There\u2019s a lot of shark themes in the meetings. We\u2019ve had an AI generated video of a shark eating a bull this week. Taking its head off!\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Things like that are a little starter in meetings. They look quite cool, gets the boys engaged, and then “bam” you\u2019re into the presentation and you\u2019re into learning.<\/p>\n

\u2018If your team doesn\u2019t have ambitions to win, then what\u2019s the point? Hopefully we can get top four, semi-final, final. The next step is for us to get a home semi-final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It\u2019s going to be tough but if we can make that then we\u2019ve got a way higher chance of winning. If we can get to the final, then it\u2019s anyone\u2019s game.\u2019<\/p>\n

Outside his ambitions at Sale, where he is sharing the hooker responsibilities with new man Nathan Jibulu, Cowan-Dickie\u2019s next big international target will be the 2027 World Cup.<\/p>\n

He is, to great surprise, not on the radar of R360, and plans to keep alive his England ambitions. \u2019It would be amazing to make the next World Cup but you don\u2019t want to look too far ahead,’ he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I feel good. I\u2019m 32 and I don\u2019t feel any older than I did two years ago. I had that year where my shoulder was bad so that\u2019s effectively another year I can add on. I\u2019m not slowing down. I\u2019m probably in the best shape I\u2019ve been in for a long time.<\/p>\n

\"Cowan-Dickie <\/p>\n

Cowan-Dickie celebrates scoring his second try during the PREM match against Leicester Tigers back in December\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The prop has not been approached by the R360 breakaway league but has his heart set on England for now anyway<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve not been approached by R360, which is unfortunate because they\u2019re throwing mad money around! It\u2019s like Voldemort, the name that shouldn\u2019t be spoken. Obviously some boys must have been approached but it\u2019s not really spoken about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I assume there won\u2019t be many teams, which means fewer games, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a bad thing.<\/p>\n

\u2018But if you\u2019re a young guy coming through then you ain’t gonna go there because all you want to do is play for England. That\u2019s what I was like when I was younger. It\u2019s an interesting one, but my focus is here – and I want to play for England.\u2019<\/p>\n

On Friday night, all eyes will be on Sale, where Cowan-Dickie will be hoping to be celebrating with a burger, chips and a milkshake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The night after the final Lions Test in Sydney, Luke Cowan-Dickie went back to his room and ordered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[83316,97,309,23784,6823,60651,5903,8631,23783,43326,217,101,5831,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-189598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-australia-rugby","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-england-rugby","12":"tag-lions-tour","13":"tag-mike-tindall","14":"tag-rugby","15":"tag-rugby-world-cup","16":"tag-rugbyunion","17":"tag-six-nations","18":"tag-sport","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-steve-borthwick","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}