The Exeter Chiefs have continued their drive to secure some of the brightest young talent in the country by snapping up four highly rated players, all hailing from the same school.
Toby Clinch, Louie Sinclair, Sol Moody and Junior Kpoku all enter the Chiefs ranks from Finborough School in Suffolk, having taken the school team to the National U18s Cup Semi-Finals last season.
With the Chiefs experiencing a changing of the guard, bidding farewell to some of the household names who have been mainstays of the club over the past decade, for Director of Rugby Rob Baxter, the focus is on producing the next generation of talent that will take the club back to the pinnacle of Domestic & European Rugby.
Baxter told us, “Personally, I am delighted that Toby, Sol, Louie and Junior have chosen to join our academy to further their professional rugby careers. All four are already showing the qualities of hard work, team buy in and pride in what they do that will hold them in really good stead going forward.
They have settled into the group quickly and have been taking a full part in pre-season training, they have arrived from Finborough School with some really good, solid rugby foundations and it is now our job to give them the opportunities to maximise their potential both in training and playing and I am really looking forward to watching them play some competitive games in the near future.
All four arrive at an exciting time for young players here at the Exeter Chiefs, we are invested in bringing through young players using our academy and University pathways and we are working extremally hard to make these pathways as successful and rewarding for the players and club as possible.”
“Doctor, Farmer and Solicitor” – The Day Jobs of the 2023 Rugby World Cup Referees
1 Ben O’Keeffe – Eye Doctor
Ben O’Keeffe is one of New Zealand’s six full-time rugby referees. Alongside O’Keeffe’s on-field role, which sees him take charge of Super Rugby’s most exciting talents, the 34-year-old is also a fully-qualified ophthalmologist or eye doctor.
Dr Ben specialises in eye health and disease, and he is the Director and Founder of oDocs Eye Care. O’Keeffe established the organisation eight years ago, with the company striving to end preventable blindness through state of the art techniques.
The goal of oDocs is to make eye care more affordable across the globe, with the rugby referee at the heart of the ground-breaking progressions.