White and Nowell struck up a friendship during their time together at English outfit Exeter and are planning to catch up ahead of Saturday night's series-opening Test in Perth.

Nowell is an admirer of White's feisty nature and he's now looking forward to winding up the Australian as an opposition player.

"I know Whitey quite well. Our partners are good friends and our kids were born around the same time," Nowell said.

"I've not seen him for a couple of years now so we've got a lot to catch up on.

"Everybody goes on about how fiery he is but I've only seen that feistiness and aggression from the same side, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he's like to play against.

"I might give him a few prods now and then if I'm out there."

Nowell is also planning to catch up with former Wallabies prop Greg Holmes, who spent time at Exeter as well.

The English winger is counting his lucky stars after recovering in time from a broken arm to take part in the three-Test tour of Australia.

The 29-year-old broke his arm during England's Six Nations defeat to France in March, in a setback that continued his wretched run with injury.

"I jumped up for a high ball, landed on it funny and had a clean break of my radius," Nowell said.

"It's just one of those things. The injuries I really did struggle with were the muscle tears and then rushing to get back after I had my foot operated on.

"If anyone works out (how many weeks I've missed in my career to injury), please don't tell me. It's depressing, isn't it?

"I try not to take things too seriously. If I started thinking like that I think I'd get bogged down quite a bit."

Australian Associated Press