'I already had that chip on my shoulder'

From the moment Exeter’s Paul Brown-Bampoe raced home from 95 metres inside 10 minutes of his Champions Cup debut against Bordeaux-Begles, he has been the talk of the town every bit as much as the injured Immanuel Feyi-Waboso.

It takes something special, or someone special, to eclipse France’s foremost wings, Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Damian Penaud, but that’s exactly what the muscular winger did back in January.

Brown-Bampoe had already served notice of his finishing ability in the first half of the season, but to do it in the company of the current Six Nations Player of the Championship and France’s joint-top record try-scorer, having been playing in a part-time league the week before, was something else.

That’s how you mark your @ChampionsCup debut 😱

Paul Brown-Bampoe runs it in from 95 metres for @ExeterChiefs 💨

🎥 @PremSportsTV #InvestecChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/EimNJWqHPY

— Premiership Rugby (@premrugby) January 11, 2025

In a recent interview on the Rugby Analyst YouTube channel, Brown-Bampoe spoke about how that one-game loan spell at Plymouth lit the fire under him, prompting talk from Rob Baxter that he could be an England ‘bolter’ this summer.

“Ultimately, it was a massive confidence boost for me knowing that I could perform against world-class wingers like that. But the funniest thing about that game and what happened was the week before, I was playing for Plymouth Albion, on loan.

“I think going on loan, it was only for one game, after playing Premiership rugby, put another chip on my shoulder. I already had that chip on my shoulder. And I just knew that this game, against the toughest opposition that we would probably face this season, would change the trajectory of my season.

“They (as in Chiefs) were very much looking at me from a development perspective and probably were expecting me to take a bit longer to go on the frontline for the team, so I really targeted that game.

“The fallout from that game just elevated my confidence a bit more, it made me feel like I could do it, I could throw some punches against the big boys. It was more like internal confidence rather than getting caught up in the media hype.”

Having been scouted and then signed by the Chiefs in the 2023/24 season on the back of his performance for Durham University against Exeter University, whilst part way through his Master’s degree in engineering, Brown-Bampoe has enjoyed a meteoric rise and provided some much-needed positivity in what has been an otherwise disappointing season at Sandy Park.

Head-to-Head

Last 5 Meetings

Wins

2

Draws

0

Wins

3

Average Points scored

31

29

First try wins

80%

Home team wins

80%

Heading into Sunday’s game against Gloucester, the 22-year-old has scored an impressive 18 tries in 19 games, including two in last week’s narrow defeat against Bath. Brown-Bampoe says the foundation for his success was knuckling down in pre-season.

“Going into pre-season, I was pretty determined to make that Chiefs’ squad. I definitely felt like I had it within me, but I knew it would take lots of extra sessions and lots of extra skills – basically, I had to upskill myself.

“It was the first time that I had spent the whole summer solely focusing on rugby and not dossing around playing basketball and going on holiday or something like that. I knew the trajectory would be pretty high if I committed to it, and I just bought into it.”

The prospect of having Fayi-Waboso on one wing and Brown-Bampoe on the other is one to get Chiefs fans excited, especially with Len Ikitau providing them with the bullets to fire when he joins the club in December.

Both wingers are 22, both score tries for fun, and both have had a rapid rise from student rugby. But Brown-Bampoe, who is actually the older of the two by seven months, insists he is not Manny 2.0, but very much his own man.

“Ultimately, I am flattered to be compared to a player that has represented the country and, hopefully, if he is fit, will be on the Lions tour, and could be a Lions player of the future..

“But saying that, I definitely want to set out my own path, I definitely want to create my own legacy and have an image that is different to Manny, and I am doing that. I have great admiration for the guy, but I am my own person.”