From Taunton Titans to a European last eight: Tom Wyatt’s weave to top

W e could start at the end, with everyone on their feet at Sandy Park and cheering one of this season’s most stirring European moments. Rewatch the footage and even Tom Wyatt, Exeter’s elusive young full-back, could be seen gleefully thumping the turf three times with his right fist last Sunday, in celebration of the thrilling 56th-minute try that helped Exeter secure a home Champions Cup quarter-final against the Stormers this Saturday.

Or we can retrace our steps and reflect on the improbable Cinderella-style journey that has taken him from there to here. In the hills and narrow lanes of west Somerset they love their sporting pursuits but the road to national prominence can be more isolated and winding than it is in metropolitan areas. The 23‑year‑old Wyatt, a farmer’s son from just outside Wiveliscombe – or “Wivey” as it is known to the locals – has had to go the long way round even to come this far.

Dig a little deeper and the tale of Wyatt is also another cautionary example of English rugby’s dislocated teenage development pathways. Only four years ago he was playing at level eight with North Petherton. No invitation to join a Premiership club’s junior academy had materialised. The one time he attended a trial, aged 16, for Bath’s age-group setup, they sent him packing with the dullest two words in a coach’s lexicon: too small.

Yet now, having impressed in Exeter’s Premiership Cup triumph last month, the unaffected country boy has slalomed his way into the Champions Cup last eight. Not since Harold Gimblett missed the morning bus up from Bicknoller, hitched a hasty lift and scored a hundred in 63 minutes batting at No 8 on his Somerset debut in 1935, has this scenic rural backwater raised a collective pint of