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The rookie winger Exeter have tipped for Feyi-Waboso-like progress
By Liam Heagney
Rob Baxter has come into this weekend’s new Gallagher Premiership season predicting big things can rapidly happen for rookie Paul Brown-Bampoe, similar to how Immanuel Feyi-Waboso rose from obscurity to prominence. Feyi-Waboso’s breakthrough season at the Chiefs was so fantastic that he even made a Test debut off the England bench last February in Rome and is now a regular starter in Steve Borthwick’s side.
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Director of rugby Baxter hasn’t predicted that Brown-Bampoe will catch Borthwick’s attention just as quickly, but he believes the 22-year-old recruited from Durham University, having previously represented England Counties U18s, England Students and England 7s, has the armoury to immediately become a regular Exeter selection.
Having shone across the pre-season, including scoring a hat-trick in his first start versus Cornish Pirates and also grabbing a try against Ospreys, Brown-Bampoe is now set for a Premiership debut this Saturday as he has been named as Chiefs’ No23 on their bench for the Sandy Park opener versus Leicester Tigers.
Asked if Brown-Bampoe might enjoy a swift rise to prominence similar to how Feyi-Waboso, last year, and Tom O’Flaherty, many years ago, quickly became Sandy Park favourites after their respective arrivals in Devon as unheralded talents, Baxter said: “I certainly think he could, without doubt.
“Because of where he is physically, he just needs time on the field and that is where we have got to really work hard on it because at Premiership clubs, the games are one a week. There really isn’t a second-team competition. You can organise friendlies and bits and pieces, but with Paul it’s either we have got to get him into the 23 or get him out playing somewhere. That is what he really needs to do, and spend a lot of time training here.
“We have to try and get the balance right for him but right here and now, he is very likely to be in and around our match day 23 for the Premiership games because of the way he has performed in pre-season.
“That’s how we always try to run things here. If a young player – or new players – come in and merits being there, regardless of whether we have got some concerns on whether they aren’t quite ready for it or whether they haven’t quite got all the experience they need, we tend to put them in because that is how you gain experience.
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“We take the pain, we take the gain. That is what we have done with young players in the past and that is likely to be how we will start working with Paul.”
Baxter explained that it was the BUCS Super Rugby competition that brought Brown-Bampoe to Exeter’s attention last year. “I watch a lot of university games and we have got coaching staff involved. A couple of them, Gareth Elliott and Haydn Thomas, they were saying to me last season, ‘This guy stands out in the BUCS competition’.
How? “As a real finisher, strong guy, very fast, probably raw – even he would admit that. So I had a good look at him last season and we brought him in early last year to start to get this process. He was with us from Christmas, came on trial initially and then stayed with us. Played some games with Plymouth which was great, which meant he kept playing.
“Obviously Ali (Hepher), Haydn, Gareth Steenson last year worked really closely with him on some of those elements around kicking, positional play, all the bits and pieces he still probably has to learn.
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“The one thing is he is quick, strong and is determined and professional, is diligence and wants to learn. He has got all the raw ingredients to be a very, very good player. It’s just for us to coach him really well and try and accelerate the process of allowing him to feel very comfortable in those high level environments where he will be tested tactically as well as technically and physically.”
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