Ehren Painter: ‘I’ve had some PBs. Do they humble you? Absolutely’

It’s not an exaggeration to describe Ehren Painter as a big unit. Come the start of the Gallagher Premiership at home to Leicester on September 21, the 6ft 4in Exeter tighthead hopes to be 'slimmed down' to his preferred fighting weight of 145kgs. For a man of that size, you imagine every pre-season is a tortuous existence but it sounds like the recent months preparing with the Chiefs have instead been right up the giant row’s street.

“Do I like pre-season? What a question,” he remarked to RugbyPass at the end of another day’s training at Sandy Park where he arrived upstairs to chat wearing a sleeveless Exeter basketball-style vest showing off his bulging biceps. “There are parts I don’t enjoy. The early wake-ups. The heat. But I enjoy seeing how it’s always exciting, like the first day of school, what are we going to do this season that is different from last.

“I always find that is exciting and with pre-season games, it’s how are we going to perform, how are we look different, how are we evolving. It has been really good. It’s probably the first pre-season in a while that I have, like a lot of lads, fully completed. I did a lot this pre-season that I wasn’t able to get through (before), like early contact stuff, the early conditioning, the swimming, we do a lot here. I had a decent amount of time which I’m very proud about. It’s been brilliant and everyone is itching to get going. It’s not a super long pre-season like it was last year. I’m looking forward to the start, for sure.”

Now 26, Painter is no rookie when it comes to preparing for the weekly scrummaging battles that lie ahead. How complex and scientific has the pre-season become compared to when he first made the grade in 2017/18 at Northampton? “It doesn’t change too much,” he said, softly spoken and choosing his words carefully. “We have looked at being a little bit less off-feet and then the time we are on-feet, make it as powerful as possible which is fairly new for me and which I’m thoroughly enjoying.

“It’s all relative of course but I feel like I can get higher speed metres and stuff like that. But you are a prop, you need to get as strong as possible and as big as possible that is functional. It’s the way it has always been. We get a lot of scrum conditioning in early and that is how we build the scrum around and being able to play.”

Does that fine-tuning still involve Painter carving it up in the gym? “Yes, absolutely. I have had some PBs and yes, I am proud of them, very happy with them. Are they as good as Will Goodrick-Clarke’s? No. Do they humble you? Absolutely. But for me, I’m happy.”

Give us a personal best example? “70 kilos for two on the dumbbell bench press. Pretty happy with that. Whereas Will was doing 70 for six, I’m pretty happy with that.” What about size and nutrition? “I’m about 147kgs. I started about 150 and my goal is to get to about 145 for the Prem.

“For someone like me, and as you can see with some of the lads in here, there is a good group of us that will never be told to put on weight. The weight comes so easily, it’s about trying to manage it and get as strong, get as good on that body as you can. I’m 6ft 4; it’s tall. I’d say I’d be 6”6 if I wasn’t scrummaging. Oh yeah, I’m sure it has stolen a couple of inches,” he exclaimed before referencing his refuelling.

“It’s about balance, it’s about me being able to fuel and feeling good for training but also not overeating because you don’t want to shoot up in weight and feel rubbish before game day and whatnot, so there are still targets I need to hit. So yes, I do absolutely need to fuel for the session to make sure I get my recovery and prepare for the gym and stuff, but it’s also making sure I don’t overeat and put on weight.”

What isn’t a balance is his passion for Exeter. He’s all in when it comes to supporting the style of play at the club he joined in March 2023 after falling down the pecking order at Saints where he split his time that final season with Bedford to up his tally of minutes. “I absolutely love it down here,” he enthused. “The way the Chiefs play absolutely suits tight five right to the ground. The way they hold the scrum and our set-piece and our big forwards, the freedom to let us be who we are and not try and be otherwise.

“Communication about being yourself is something that should attract a lot of people and it definitely has made me feel like this is absolutely the right place. Also, the fact the tighthead spot is so competitive is huge. The whole front row is so competitive that each week you have to evolve a little bit and get better. It’s just a good place to learn that part of your game.

“Leaving Saints, it was just an unbelievable opportunity to come here. It’s a team that I have always respected. As a Saints player playing against Chiefs, I’d always play against Chiefs because we knew their scrum was so good. So even though I’d play for Bedford the week before, I’d play against Chiefs the week afterwards.

“I always hugely respected them and knew their pedigree, their history of developing tight five forwards, front rows in particular if you look at the likes of Alec Hepburn, Harry Williams, Tomas Francis, Luke Cowan-Dickie. They all reached very highly and are European and Premiership winners. The opportunity to come here was one I just couldn’t turn down.”

A quirk with Painter’s statistics is that he scored his maiden first-team try for Northampton in September 2018 and then had to curiously wait until October 2023 to finally score again, this time in the Exeter colours. Two more tries quickly followed. “It’s the time we spend in those areas. I’d love to tell you they are from halfway and I’m running, I have maybe done a chip or something like that, but it is never the case. Five metres at best, a half-metre dot down. But we train that a lot, we pride that in our game and it means a lot of people getting involved.

“It means that everyone is on the ball a lot but then for someone like my size, it’s a good place to make dents here and there and I thoroughly enjoy it, I really enjoy that part of it. The only thing was it was at the start of the season and I didn’t get anymore, so I’m actually on a bit of a drought at the moment.”

It was six years ago when Painter made his big Saints breakthrough, following up a Premiership debut versus Saracens with a result-clinching 16-minute cameo performance in the derby versus Leicester that included the scrum penalty win which invited Stephen Meyler to kick the winning points.

He was instantly touted as a player for Northampton to build their pack around, a hype soon added to by his involvement with an England U20s side that reached the 2018 final of the World Rugby Junior Championship in France. What does he remember of those far-off days and what advice does he have for Exeter’s contingent of age-grade World Cup winners, the likes of Joe Bailey, who will be looking to kick on and carve out successful first-team careers.

“My first game was against Sarries, I came off the bench and I did get a scrum pen. It was unbelievable. Then the second game was against Tigers and I got a couple of scrum pens and a turnover at the ruck, which is ages ago now,” he recalled, going on to offer advice to the latest young bucks making their way up the ranks.

“I’d say don’t wait. When you get the opportunity make the most out of it. When you are a young player more than not it will be coming off the bench and you have got 20 minutes, that’s all you have got, to show that you’re ready. You have got to play that 20 minutes and from there it all starts to snowball and coaches go, 'You know what, I know he is young but look what he did'. From there you start to build trust so I’d say don’t wait, take your opportunity.”

Painter adores the scrum and squirms at talk of depowering or getting rid of it. “It’s the ultimate contest, it’s eight individuals coming together to dominate the other pack. I’d say it is the best sign of where physically and mentally a group of men are at. It’s a huge weapon for any team. It’s also incredibly unique, there isn’t anything like it.

“There isn’t a sport that has anything like the other parts of rugby. So the people saying they need to get rid of the scrum, that’s ridiculous. But I also agree that poor scrummaging is really, really tough to watch and I absolutely get that. But it’s so special and attracts. Without the scrum, it wouldn’t have this diversity of people of all shapes and all different strengths playing a sport everyone loves.

“It’s just a great representation of human beings. Not everyone is 6ft 4 or 18 stone, quick as you like. Some might be a little bit shorter, they might be a little bit chunkier but they are slower and stronger, and I just think the scrum encapsulates everything. I don’t agree with people wanting to get rid of the scrum at all and I'm not just saying it as I would be out of a job.”

What have been his best and worst moments packing down? “Last season against Sale, the penalty scrum try. They are very rare. That was only my second and scoring in front of a packed Sandy Park was truly special. One of the favourite moments of my whole career.

“There is always yin and yang. Crikey. I remember my first European game ever against Clermont, I was playing for Saints and it was Clermont when they had (Rabah) Slimani and they were cooking, really cooking at that time. I/we took a pasting. I was 21, 22 at the time and it was just the feeling of ‘I don’t know what I want to do here, I’m just getting taken to the cleaners’.

“But that was such a pivotal moment in my career because from there I was able to cut out the things I was doing that were not useful and really focus on the things that were really important. Then when we played them away, it was one of my favourite moments.

“We got a couple of scrum penalties out there and definitely had a far, far better experience. We lost that game still but it was just showing where it went so badly the first time and we got it right and we learned what we needed to and we turned it around. I am sure there will be more bad moments in the future – there were some bad moments last season – but as long as you keep learning from them…”

Painter hopes this tuition will continue at Exeter for the foreseeable future as he is now well-settled in the area and loves to explore. “It’s fantastic. I have been here for a while now but my girlfriend and dog have been down since last April, May.

“The beaches are fantastic but the best part is Dartmoor. It’s just this vast place, it’s beautiful and a lot of times so quiet as well. It’s just brilliant. Have you been? I’d strongly advise it. You can find little pockets, you can go up a hill and you hear nothing. It’s amazing. In season I’d go and do something like that every Thursday. Just me and boy going on a journey. Who knows where we end up.”

Sounds bliss. Just like his productive pre-season.