What Rob Baxter wants to see from Tommy Wyatt's long-awaited comeback

Exeter Chiefs boss Rob Baxter wants to see full-back Tommy Wyatt play with a smile on his face when he makes his long-awaited comeback on Saturday.

Wyatt is set to end his two-year injury hell after being named at full-back for the friendly at Sandy Park.

The 26-year-old, who can play in any of the back-five positions, last played for the Chiefs in a home defeat to Sale Sharks in May 2025.

He damaged ligaments to his right knee early in 2024 in a game against Glasgow and then suffered the same fate to his left knee in the final game of the 2024/25 season, which led to him missing the whole of last year’s campaign.

Baxter believes there is no medical reason he can’t return to his former self, and hopes he will take confidence from a run out against the Scarlets.

“He’s been a long time out of the game. You can clearly see it’s taken him a little bit of time to get confident in those knees again. But I watched him in training this week, and I thought it was the best he’d looked.

“He is looking like he was starting to forget about his injuries and just start to let himself cut free.

“Hopefully, we can just start to see that Tommy Wyatt we knew as a very, very good player, and he’ll be back to his best soon.

“I know it’ll take a while. I’m not expecting him to be amazing in game one. All I’ve said to him is, ‘we’re backing you, and we think you’re gonna be fine. We think you’ll come through this. There’s nothing lingering, and nothing on the medical side you can’t do’.

“I think, for me, that’s just letting go, and the most important thing is to play rugby again and enjoy it and come off the pitch in one piece, smile and go, ‘I can still do this’.

“Tommy was one of those unfortunate people who was almost going to do the other one (knee) once he’d done the first one because he’s got a slight, slight deformity that people have, where it makes you a little bit susceptible to ACL injuries,” Baxter added.