Jack Rowell OBE (1 November 1936 – 1 July 2024) was an English rugby union coach and executive.
[2] From 1972 Rowell coached Gosforth, leading them to victory in the John Player Cup in 1975/76 and 1976/77,[3] before his business career took him to the South West.
[6][7] He took over from Geoff Cooke, announcing that England would give up the forward-dominated, risk-free strategies that had won so many Five Nations Championship titles in the past, instead adopting a 'running rugby' style.
[citation needed] Rowell's England won twenty-one of their twenty-nine matches, including the 1995 World Cup quarter-final against Australia.
[8] In 1998 Rowell became a non-executive director on the board of Bristol, when millionaire businessman Malcolm Pearce saved the club from extinction.