Exeter's play-off run forces Hooper 'to grow'

Exeter's Australia flanker Tom Hooper has said his first season at Sandy Park has forced him to grow as a player.

Hooper, 25, helped the Chiefs reach their first Prem final in five years as they won a nail-biting semi-final 27-26 at Bath on Saturday.

It was Hooper's 22nd appearance for Exeter since joining the club last autumn.

"It's challenged me to grow, certainly. Not only on the field, off the field as well," he told BBC Sport after the win.

"As an individual I realised if I'm going to put my body through 40-plus games a season, including internationals, I'm going to have to change a few habits. I'm going to make sure I really nail down my recovery processes.

"I've had to change a lot of things off field, I've really tried to develop into a leadership role and just try and make all the people around me better as well."

Hooper joined a side that had ended a club-worst season with just four wins and a second-from-bottom of the table finish.

He was one of six full internationals to move to Exeter in the summer alongside compatriot Len Ikitau, Italians Andrea Zambonin and Stephen Varney, South Africa's Joseph Dweba and Georgia prop Bachuki Tchumbadze.

But Hooper said that rather than the new faces, it is the players that went through their tough season that have got the Chiefs back to Twickenham.

"Exeter's a historic club and there was a lot of heartache from last year, but I think that's really galvanised a core nucleus of that squad that went through that," he added.

"They've gone through all the hard times, they know how to play in those tough games and then you look at the international boys we've brought in like the Italians in particular - Steve Varney and Zambo, he's just been amazing for the team, and I always love playing with a guy like Len Ikitau.

"We have kind of just come in and bought into the Chiefs' ethos, we haven't changed anything, it's certainly not us that have changed this team around, it's those guys that went through that hardship of last year.

"They learned from that experience - you can either kind of sheep away from that and take an experience like that and really make it define you, or you can turn around and make your comeback.

"How you apply yourself to every little thing in training, in the off season, the boys worked incredibly hard and that's what defines them."