‘It feels a lot like home’ – Hooper on Exeter move

Just a few minutes in the company of Tom Hooper is all it takes to understand the happiness he is experiencing in his first season at Exeter Chiefs.

The 24-year-old Australia flanker was one of the Prem club’s big summer signings – the stardust Rob Baxter has sprinkled on a squad that fell way short of the sum of its parts last season.

Along with fellow Wallaby Len Ikitau and Italian pair Stephen Varney and Andrea Zambonin, Exeter brought in some extra international class to add to Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Greg Fisilau and Henry Slade.

“Coming into this environment has been so easy,” Hooper told BBC Sport before his side’s final European Challenge Cup pool game at home to Cardiff Blues.

“I feel like I’m just back playing with my mates. It feels a lot like home which is really special, and as you’ve seen it’s a special group and we’re doing a lot of good things on the field.”

The list of Australians moving to Sandy Park is long and distinguished.

Players including Dean Mumm, Dave Dennis, Greg Holmes, Lachie Turner and Nic White have all shone in Devon.

Former Australia, and now Samoa prop Scott Sio, was on hand to give Hooper some insight in his fourth season at Exeter while scrum-half White, who spent two-and-a-half season at the Chiefs also provided him with important counsel.

“He was always speaking very highly of this place,” Hooper says of White, who he first played alongside as a teenager with Super Rugby’s Brumbies in 2021.

“So it was always kind of on the wish list, on the bucket list to try and tick off playing here at some stage.

“I actually didn’t think it was going to be so early in my career, but I’m so blessed that they came looking for me and I just knew it was a pretty easy answer once a few things got aligned.”

And now he is in England he is getting used to a highly competitive Prem Rugby season.

Exeter are third at the midway stage of the campaign with 50% more wins than their entire total last season when they finished second-from-bottom.

“I knew it was a quality competition and I wanted to better myself as an individual and as a rugby player,” he said.

“Coming here, not just the ferocity of the games on the field, but I guess the challenges off field in terms of improving myself as an athlete in the gym, on the training park, it’s been great.

“I’ve loved how everyone goes about their business over here, whether that’s us or our competition that we’re facing.

“I’m loving the standard that it’s forcing me to rise to.”

That standard has seen Hooper become a fixture in Australia’s back row.

He started all six of his country’s Rugby Championship fixtures last year and featured in two Tests against the British and Irish Lions – his one start coming in the third Test victory in Sydney.

But with him being one of Australia’s main names on the teamsheet, it could spell disappointment for Exeter fans.

The Wallabies are keen to select players who play in Australia rather than overseas if they are of equal calibre, so it could mean Hooper having to leave Sandy Park if he wants to guarantee a place in the squad for a home World Cup in 2027.

“I’ve always said that there’s only positives to come out of this and right now I’m taking this opportunity at Exeter with two hands,” added Hooper, who feels he has had great support from Exeter’s coaches regarding his international ambitions.

“If that results in an extended stay here, then so be it and I’m playing for my country and everything’s going well, but if it results in me heading back home, that’s also a positive because it gets me closer to my family.

“For me I’d kind of hit my ceiling in Australia, I wanted to experience a new competition and I wanted to face different oppositions, different coaching and I’ve gone and done that now and that’s tracking in a positive direction for me.

“I can’t see myself moving on unless there’s another growth for me to be had, so right now I’m really settled in my decision. I’m really happy with being here, but I’m not saying that I won’t return to Australia because that might be the best place for me at the time.”

However long Hooper stays at Exeter, his aim is to win.

The Chiefs are performing well in the Prem, winning at notoriously difficult places such as Saracens and Sale this season and suffered just two narrow defeats away at Bath and Bristol.

After four seasons outside the play-offs – having finished first or second in the six previous campaigns – Exeter look to be back to the side that impressed in the latter half of the last decade, and Hooper is targeting medals.

“If we can get to those big games, the final of the Challenge Cup, final of the Prem Cup, final of the Prem, and we can perform at a high quality level and leave absolutely everything, just absolutely ring the last drop of sweat that we have left in our bodies into those three competitions, I think we can finish the season with our heads really high.

“I genuinely think that we have the group that if we do that, we’ll be coming away with a lot of silverware. That’s all you can ask.

“If you look at this group, what’s really special about it is boys just put in for each other week in, week out, and if we can end that season just absolutely drained, like the petrol tank’s absolutely empty, I think we’ll be very proud of efforts.”