Rob Baxter has branded the re-signing of England winger Immanuel Feyi-Waboso as 'very exciting' for exeter -chiefs>Exeter Chiefs as he pledges to provide the 21-year-old the environment and opportunities to establish himself as an international star.
Feyi-Waboso, who has played just 18 games for Chiefs since moving to the club in 2022 following the collapse of Wasps, has had a meteoric rise in the last year, going from playing in the third tier of English rugby on loan at Taunton Titans in 2022/23 to starting for England in this year's Six Nations.
Despite his lack of game time, Exeter understandably were in doubt when it came to securing the explosive winger's long-term future at the club, with his professional rugby career coinciding with his medical studies at the University of Exeter. And Feyi-Waboso looks set to be joined by England teammate Henry Slade at Sandy Park next season as well, with director of rugby Baxter stating he is confident the outside centre will remain at Exeter beyond this summer when his current contract expires.
Baxter said: “We’re really pleased with Immanuel’s re-signing. People are probably aware we’ve been looking to bring in young players to reduce the age of our squad in more recent times.
“With what happened at Wasps, when we looked at their players the individuals we looked at mainly were those we saw as the talented players in their academy. We looked at a lot of their Premiership Cup games – saw Immanuel, Greg [Fisilau] and Alfie Bell standing out. Particularly with Immanuel, we knew he was interested in what our university route could provide. So, the planning stages of a route for him to come through worked really well for us. The University of Exeter have been fantastic in helping us align everything for Immanuel around his medical degree.
“Ultimately, we saw a player who had massive physical attributes and huge potential but hadn’t played a lot of rugby. We hoped that we could give him that game time and that opportunity, then hopefully he would come through and obviously things have happened very quickly for him – which I’m delighted with.
“It’s great to know that he’s going to be here long term and hopefully we can really help him with his rugby development so that he can go on to get many more England caps and see what else he can achieve down the line. So, it’s a very exciting signing for the club and bodes very well for the future.”
Feyi-Waboso is the latest player to commit his future to Chiefs, joining lock Lewis Pearson and fly-half Harvey Skinner in putting pen to paper on re-signings already announced, with plenty more expected over the coming weeks.
