MY HOMETOWN – Exeter Chiefs 25-26 Preview                 

For USA star Hope Rogers (below, left), Exeter may be in the wild west of England, but it has become her hometown. So much so that she’s celebrating her 50^th game for the Chiefs this weekend.

For new head coach Steve Salvin it’s a fresh start for Exeter Chiefs, as they shift their identity for the season ahead. Both spoke exclusively to Helen M Jerome.

After finishing just outside the PWR playoffs last season, Exeter Chiefs are focused on progress this time out. Some bold signings back this up, notably Black Fern star Amy Rule, Italian international Francesca Granzotto, plus Gabriella Nigrelli, Zoe Dare, Eleanor Hing, Lola Whitley and Sofia Bekir Fuente.

Already in the stacked squad are Canadian centre Alex Tessier, with her countrywomen hooker Emily Tuttosi and prop DaLeaka Menin. Not to mention including Red Roses and World Cup winners Maddie Feaunati. Plus the Moloney-MacDonalds, of course (below, alongside Emily Robinson). Also expect breakouts from Alessia Skeates and Naomi Brennan who have stepped up to the senior ranks.

Driving them on, Steve Salvin replaces the departing head coach Susie Appleby and is joined by backs and attack coach Oli Bishop, who comes from Trailfinders.

Hope Rogers reckons the PWR is by far the best women’s league in the world, and her ambition is to be undeniably the best loose head in the world. She believes the Chiefs have the drive and the relentlessness – plus the bonus of really good quality, homegrown university kids coming through.

Hope, 50 caps is a big milestone for you. What’s the secret of your longevity at Exeter and how have you made it your hometown, your home from home?

I definitely consider Exeter home and the Chiefs are definitely part of my family and something I’m very close with. But the secret I guess would just be just enjoying what you’re doing as much as you can because if you’re enjoying it then you want to be here.

You want to get better and you want to stay so I try to enjoy as much as I can and then just try to find every way I can to keep improving my game and keep staying healthy. I’m an older player. So just doing everything I can to keep my body as fit and healthy as possible.

You’re the most capped Eagle, so I wonder how important, dare I ask, are your Canadians? You have Alex Tessier, DaLeaka Menin and Emily Tuttosi. How key are they alongside you?

Yeah, immensely important. I’ve been playing with them for five years; this is our fifth season together.

So just our connection and what we learn and what we bring together, especially having Emily and DaLeaka in the front row, constantly learning off of each other.

Then we obviously have our American-Canadian rivalry that used to be very, very competitive in the early days in my career. But had become slightly less competitive, but this past year it was even more competitive than it has been in the past, so it can give us that a little bit!

Yeah, still a bit of rivalry, but a friendly one for sure.

Who are the rising stars and youngsters in the Chiefs who we should look out for this season?

That’s a great question because I’ve only just come back obviously from World Cup and we have quite a similar squad, but then we have quite a young squad as well coming through.

Alessia [Skeates] is a front-rower who’s quite young, just coming out of the university system.

And she shows a lot of promise in terms of scrummaging, her athleticism around the park as well.

So players like that, obviously Abby Middlebrooke has been in and out a little bit as well. She constantly gets better.

Their desire to get better as well is important in terms of how far they will go. So I’m excited to keep working with them and playing alongside and training with them as well.

Is there anyone who’s due like a breakthrough season do you think this time?

We have a young 10, Maddie Flutey. She’s very talented for 18. She’ll play a lot more with the uni.

She’s quite raw and definitely someone that you can start to probably see a lot of as she starts to break through the system.

The World Cup’s brought a lot of things, a lot more eyeballs, and bums on seats. But can you feel a buzz of excitement now?

Yeah, it was cool because leading up to the World Cup, we had two home games this past year and both were record-breaking crowds.

Actually for the men’s game, more people left, because we opened up a double header, and I think we had more in the stands than the men did, actually. I mean, you want rugby to be growing, obviously, but it was interesting.

Then we played a match in Canada against Canada, which was a record-breaking crowd as well, and then to have the opening game of the World Cup against England… again another record-breaking crowd.

To go from your own country where you’re breaking records and crowds to England and starting to break records. And it was one record broken after another, you can feel that buzz and excitement.

And the backing we got from the states was really cool and exciting.

The more followers, people wanted to know: how can we watch you play in the PWR now? That’s all starting to grow.

So that just feels exciting for what’s to come for the next generation of women’s rugby as well.

You just mentioned that opening match at the Stadium of Light, which was so dramatic. How did you feel as you walked out onto the turf there?

Yeah, it was exciting. Our warm-ups were buzzing.

It was like the best warm-ups that I think we ever have.

We were like, oh, this is so exciting and cool.

I stepped out and I was like: man, I live for moments like these.

To see that many people in the crowd supporting women’s rugby was amazing.

I think one regret I probably have from the World Cup is probably not soaking in as much post game, because obviously the England game didn’t go – just in terms of the score line – as we wanted it or expected it to go either.

Obviously the scrums were a bit of a tough day there so I think I didn’t maybe soak it in as much as I should have but reflecting back like that was like the warm-ups and entering the tunnel and everything was amazing.

Why should the fans who loved watching all of you at the World Cup come to watch Exeter?

It’s exciting rugby. I mean, a lot of people love the women’s game.

There’s a big fan group, particularly for the women’s game, because it’s a bit of a different game than the men’s side.

It’s exciting. And week in and week out, you see big tackles, big, big carries. From your dominant, powerful carriers to your speed around the corner. The kicking game is growing.

There’s just a lot of action, a lot happening.

And the feel in the crowd is like a home feel. It’s like people are connected and together.

The energy is different. It feels very connected and that’s like one big thing.

It’s definitely something people should keep supporting and coming out to because they won’t be disappointed at the games and the quality of rugby we’re putting out.

What’s great about head coach Steve Salvin is that he recognises how women’s sports as a whole are booming right now, and how important it is that the support keeps growing. And he is keen to see the difference that the World Cup experience makes for this PWR season.       

So Steve, how does it feel to be fully in charge of the Chiefs now?

It feels like it’s been going on a while now. It’s been a good few months. But it probably feels a little bit different this week with it being the first PWR game.

We’ve obviously had five cup games with – just like every team that’s played in the cup – a sort of watered down squad with so many players being away at the World Cup.

Having everyone back and it now being back into the PWR, it does feel slightly different, but I’m really fortunate that I’ve got really, really good staff around me. I’ve got really, really good players around me, and we’ve tried to give lots of different people within the environment, various different bits of accountability.

So, yes, my role is head coach, but there’s lots and lots of people with lots of different roles to fill and for us to function.

Everyone needs to be able to deliver those things. So, in that regard, I’m just a piece of the puzzle..

What are your ambitions for this season? Will you be making any major changes from your predecessor’s tactics?

Not hugely. We’ve still got a broadly similar squad and the brand and style of rugby that we’ve played before is it makes sense for the group of players that we’ve got.

I think year on year whether you have a change in coaching staff or they stay the same, you do tend to have some natural evolutions and changes. You never want things to just feel the same because there’s a risk they become stagnant.

So I don’t think we’ve made hugely significant changes.

We’ve probably just tried to tweak things to make sure that we are evolving.

If you were talking about Exeter Chiefs as a concept, what’s their unique selling point? What makes them different from other clubs?

It’s a great question.

We always had the thing that made us unique is when Susie [Appleby] established the programme, it was built very largely on overseas players, so we almost had this Barbarians identity to some degree.

I actually think because of the EQP rules coming into the competition, that identity is now starting to shift slightly.

From that perspective, one thing we want to be seen as is a place that gives our young players a pathway and opportunity to learn and develop and get better and express themselves.

But at the same time, we still want to have that string to our bow, to be a place that can recruit world-class talent and help them learn and develop.

There’s probably just a slightly broader balance now in terms of the homegrown and the English players aligned with those world-class foreign players. So in that regard, our identity has shifted slightly.

That can still be a really positive thing because it’s great to see so many players coming through the pathway.

Talking about some of the new signings, maybe the biggest one is Amy Rule from the Black Ferns. Can you talk about what she brings, her star quality?

We’ve only actually had her in this week! So we’re still, we’re still getting to know her.

But a lot of work went on in the background to try and ensure we could get Amy over here in terms of… you obviously watch a lot of footage, you do a lot of referencing.

I think the star quality is certainly there as a player, you know, she’s a World Cup winner. I don’t actually know how many Black Ferns caps she’s got, but it will be a fairly substantial amount.

And she is still only 25. So she’s still got a huge amount of room for growth, which is really exciting.

But the thing I’d say about Amy, above anything else, she’s just a great person. A really nice person.

She’s had a great value this week. She’s come in clearly very open-minded to want to learn and to listen.

In that regard, she’s a really good role model for those younger players we’ve got coming into the system.

We’re very fortunate this year to have Amy sitting alongside DaLeaka Menin – two genuinely world-class tight heads, and that will be crucial for us during the course of the season.

What should we know about Gabriella Nigrelli?

Gabriella is a young player; she’s only just finished university and has been in training with the Red Roses at times.

We obviously lost a fantastic player in Rachel Johnson at the end of last season, and again, partly because of the EQP rules, we wanted to try and ensure that that replacement was English.

And despite the name, she is English! But she is young and still has a huge amount of room for growth.

We’re very, very excited to see what her development looks like over the next couple of years.

Again, a great person and she’s integrated really well. It’s been fantastic to have her during the course of the cup period well, because it’s allowed in that integration time.

So we hope Gabriella continues to evolve around her the physicality with her both her attack and defence. And her set piece skills are continually developing as well. So we’re really excited for her direction of travel.

Finally, can you tell me about your new Italian, Francesca Granzotto?

Francesca has just come off the back of the World Cup with Italy.

She’s a pacy back three player, very elusive, very evasive, and very talented.

We got a chance to see her play against Bristol in the cup a couple of weeks ago and in training over the past couple of weeks. And you can see the quality that she will bring, so I’m really excited to see how she hooks up with our other really exciting back three players.

Exeter Chiefs visit Trailfinders on 25th October at 3pm. Come in person to Trailfinders Sports Club, or watch live on YouTube