'We are hoping that his brother can now follow in his footsteps' - Exeter Chiefs bag another Cordero

Exeter Chiefs are dipping into the Cordero family rugby stocks once again, with the signing of Facundo Cordero, the young brother of former club favourite Santiago. The 21-year-old has signed a one year contract with the Devon club.

Puma star Santiago Cordero lit up the Gallagher Premiership during his time at the Chiefs and the coaching ticket are clearly hoping lightning will strike twice.

“We’ve signed a young man by the name of Cordero – Facundo Cordero,” Chief head coach Rob Baxter told the club website. “He is Santi’s younger brother. I thought the name Cordero would excite a few people as Santi was a huge fans’ favourite. He was popular amongst the squad and played exceptionally well for us during his time here.

“We are kind of hoping that his brother can now follow in his footsteps. Looking at him, he’s a little bit behind Santi in terms of his development, but hopefully what we’d like to see in the future is us having as much difficulty trying to keep hold of Facundo as we did with Santi because that is the quality of how he plays.”

“In terms of what I know about Facundo, he’s 21 years-old, he’s younger than what Santi was when he came over, but someone with some similar attributes. I am not going to sit here and say he’s someone who we have been tracking for six months, a year, because we haven’t.

“Things have happened relatively quickly. His agent let us know he was available and from a lot of nudging and prodding from Santi, saying if he was going to develop and move overseas, then we would be a good team. Ali Hepher and I have had a good look at some of his games and we like what we see.

“We haven’t spent a huge amount of time talking to him, but we are seeing enough quality there to see that it’s a very good move for us. In a lot of ways we see qualities that we saw with Santi, like the phone box type stepping to get in and out of tackles, which is clearly evident.

“There are bits of his game that he will need to develop to get to the very top of his game, but at the age he is, those development years are all ahead of him and we are hoping we can be part of that process.”