‘We’ve got to wake up and smell the coffee’: Tony Rowe on Exeter’s new American frontier

As West Country club join rugby’s modern-day gold rush, their chair looks forward to some US razzmatazz and a possible Prem expansion into Wales

Tony Rowe has not yet had time to ensure Exeter’s proposed new American owners feel fully at home in the west. On a damp morning at Sandy Park no one is wearing a Stetson hat and there is not even a horse tied up outside reception. Maybe that will be part of the handover package assuming the Chiefs’ 700-odd members vote in favour next month of proceeding with the sale of their 155-year-old club.

The winds of change, though, are kicking up the local dust. For the past 33 years Rowe has been integral to one of British team sport’s most romantic Cinderella stories. But romance doesn’t pay the bills in modern pro rugby and times are a-changing. At 77 years old, it is easy to understand why Rowe fancies handing over the reins to a smartly dressed stranger from out of town.