'Eight to 10 weeks into the pandemic, I'd chucked on nearly a stone'

Size very much became a major talking point last Thursday at the U20s World Cup in South Africa. Posolo Tuilagi and some of his fellow French giants introduced themselves to the world, with a bruised New Zealand on the receiving end in the glue-like Paarl mud and the monstrous Western Cape rain.

“These men have never come up against forwards that are 150kgs and two or three of them all in the same forward pack, so we have got to learn how we deal with that,” bemoaned Baby Blacks boss Clark Laidlaw when the punishment had ended.

England have brought their share of age-grade giants to the southern hemisphere as well, most notably Lewis Chessum. His 22-year-old older brother Ollie, the lock/blindside who is battling back from a serious ankle injury in the hope of making Rugby World Cup selection in France, has a Test-level reputation for lighting up a room with his effervescent personality.

The exact same can be said of Lewis, who is 29 months his junior and gunning to inspire England to Junior World Championship glory. He comes equipped with hands like shovels, as RugbyPass can attest following a hotel lobby handshake in downtown Cape Town.

Curiously, though, even rugby giants have their limits and over the course of a lively 30-minute conversation, one of the hot topics touched on by Chessum was his hope that he is done growing and won’t be getting any taller than he currently is.

“I’d like to think I’m finished. If there is any more, I’d be struggling in certain things. I’m 6ft 8 and three quarters – 6ft 9 is what it gets labelled as,” he said when quizzed about his immense physical presence, going on to explain his recent-years weight gain and his belief that the additional S&C work he was able to do during the pandemic lockdown was pivotal in enabling him to secure an academy contract at Leicester.

“I remember weighing in at 112 the week before I left (second level) college to come back home and something like eight to 10 weeks into the pandemic, I was 118. I had chucked on nearly a stone, or six kilos which is about a stone. I’m 122 at the moment. That is my playing weight and I feel mobile at that. I feel fit at that, I feel I can carry it. I will eventually get heavier and bigger, but at the moment that is a good stead. I have worked to get to that and am just clinging to that now.

“The pandemic probably got me my first professional contract. I went into the pandemic really light and probably not physically ready to push on. I put on a lot of weight. I was in the gym every day; I was throwing the ball around.

“I was fortunate to have an older and a younger brother – we kept each other entertained in the garden quite a lot. And then I came out of that a way better player because I was better physically. It had an effect.”

That home training was guaranteed compared to the teething troubles of getting back to work in a club environment. “We got training, but it wasn’t how it should be, wasn’t how it was before,” he recalled. “It was very distanced; very complicated. You had to fill out a million forms before you got to training.

“It was very cautious and the moment someone was in contact with it, training got canned. More often than not you would go to get ready for training that day buzzing because you would be out of the house and then training was done, someone had caught the flu.”

Let’s turn the clock back further to growing up in Lincolnshire and getting into rugby at Carre’s Grammar School. “I have got a decent set of genetics, they [his parents] have sent some height my way,” he quipped.

“I’ve got massive family support. My mum’s side of the family is very big, 14 cousins on that side, but we all grew up down the road from each other, so it is like I have got 14 brothers and sisters. And the same with my aunties and uncles, they are like extra parents to me. Everyone is so close to each other.

“On my dad’s side, he has got a smaller family but we are just as close. Family is massive. That is everything you do the game for, I guess. Family have always meant a decent amount in rugby, especially in the latter years. That is why you play – that’s why I play. I want to make my family proud. I want to make my mum proud; I want to make my dad proud. I guess I want to repay them a little bit for all the mental stress I put them through as a kid. That is why I play, and I know my brother would give you the same answer. We are both very family-orientated.”

The thing is, striving to make it in pro rugby wasn’t something Chessum genuinely believed he would ever do. “I didn’t expect to be doing what I am doing,” he admitted. “When I was 16, I got the opportunity through a trial. Other than that, I was playing rugby for fun and then the opportunity came up to get into the Leicester academy and I took that step.

“It was a foot in the door so I said I might as well put everything into this. For me, I wanted to go straight into the family business and work. I was always thinking the other way around, that I wouldn't make it and I knew I was going to go and work in the family business, so I chucked everything at it and each step was a bonus.

“I wouldn’t say me not going to university is because I knew I was going to be a rugby player; it was because I had no interest in university. I just wanted to go and be a welder in the family business. I know a fair bit through learning (about it) but it’s like most things, until you pick it up and do it, you don’t learn anything.

“I used to go and work the summers there and when I was at (second level) college, I would go for one or two days a week so yeah, I could do most of the bits (of welding) there. It’s just lucky I came here (to rugby) instead of going into work.”

Steve Borthwick guided Leicester to Gallagher Premiership glory in 2022, their first title since 2013, and it warmed the heart to see numerous graduates of the Tigers academy proving themselves at first-team level. The likes of Freddie Steward, Jack van Poortvliet and George Martin were part of the 2018/19 crop that featured in the compelling six-part RugbyPass documentary series and Chessum loves how the club nurtures its young guns.

“The Leicester academy is special,” he affirmed. “It’s such a hard-working, humble place. Lads train late on a Monday night. You would get the bus from school, absolutely freezing cold. At the time it was the Oadby Wyggs changing room so we would be all rammed in one and the lads, yeah, they worked hard. There is a reason why the likes of Freddie, Jack, George Martin, James Whitcombe, those boys there have made so many Premiership appearances and some of them are playing for England.

“There is a reason why some of them have done it so quickly because Leicester academy prepares you not only for you to be a good rugby player at the time, but it prepares you for that transition into senior rugby, to make that transition as small and as tight as possible so therefore instead of settling in, lads are kicking on.

“That is one thing you see at Leicester and I definitely felt it when I went from being an academy player to then training with the first team, you don’t feel like you are catching up. You feel like a lot of the stuff you have been given in the academy is stuff that sets you on your feet ready to go in the first team.”

As it stands, Chessum has two more years as a senior academy player and his ambition is to one day play in the same first team alongside his brother Ollie, someone who has very much inspired Lewis. “Definitely. I’d say my brother at this stage of my career is my biggest role model,” he enthused.

“Having seen what he has achieved in the period of time he has achieved it, how he plays as a player, how he is off the pitch, how he is around everyone, he is someone that I look up to massively.

“Having him as my brother, I am able to pick his brains and we have chats now and then and speak about rugby quite a lot. For my development, I probably wouldn't be as far along the line as I am without almost competing with him as a young kid.

"We competed coming up, we compete now and sort of help each other. He will give me bits of advice, he will ask me what I have noticed in a game, and I will do the same to him. He is a big part of my development.

“Me and my brother weigh about the same; we are always fluctuating, we are always speaking to each other about it, we are always bouncing up and down. We are often around the same weight. I think he might be a bit lighter, might be 120 at the moment.

"He is an inch smaller, but we are usually the same weight,” he said, adding that their relationship has been tested by Borthwick having them go head-to-head against each other at Leicester and England.

“There used to be a race in the lineout, who was quickest off the floor. He [Borthwick] used to get us competing at that all the time and used to get us doing all sorts against each other at Leicester. Then in the fallow week in the Six Nations, some of us boys from here [England U20s] got asked to go and make the numbers up in their training session, which was an absolute mental experience for us.

“In the session, they were doing a speed warm-up and he put me and my brother head-to-head and got all the boys to pick a side. Ollie pipped me, but if you watched the video back there was a slight slip, so I blame it on that.”

Ollie wasn’t named in the squad of 41 Borthwick announced last Friday to prepare for the World Cup, but it was referenced that he was still a contender while rehabbing. “Fingers crossed he makes it. He is on track with his injury, so fingers crossed he makes it,” said Lewis, who currently has younger brother Dylan – “He is going to be big; he will get to 6’4”, 6’5” but he is chucking the ball around the back line at the moment, enjoys pulling the strings a bit – and their mother cheering him on in Cape Town.

Both feature in his career highlight to date. “First Six Nations game this year against Scotland, my mum, she won’t like me telling this but I am telling this, she sometimes in big moments in games she feels like she is on the pitch with us a little bit, so if a game becomes tight she can’t bear to watch.

“You will often see her with her eyes closed but in the first Scotland game, it was my first game as captain, it was our first game of the Six Nations and my mum actually left the stand and just stood outside for five minutes because we were so tight in the middle of the game.

“I remember going to see her after the game and she was in floods of tears, she was so happy. My little brother, I don’t know if he was crying or enjoying himself, but that is my family highlight. That game with the family there, my dad, my grandparents, that would be it at The Stoop.”

Skippering England to win the Junior World Championship is now the ambition given how vested he is in being his country’s leader at an age-grade tournament that is finally being played for the first time since 2019 due to the pandemic.

“Captaining the U20s means everything,” he vouched ahead of Tuesday’s pool-deciding match versus the Junior Wallabies in Athlone. “As a boy growing up you always dream of playing for England, of singing the national anthem in front of a crowd, and I always dreamed of leading the team out of the tunnel in front of the boys and being that spokesperson for them I guess and being a leader on the pitch. Being able to achieve that, I can’t put into words how much it meant.

“This is my last block of games for the U20s. I played last year and the start of this year. I’m too old next year so having the opportunity to come out here and play five more games and have four weeks with a group of lads I have been so close with the past year or two, and then just be able to experience playing rugby against younger versions of southern hemisphere teams and watching different styles of rugby, playing against different styles of rugby, it’s massive.”