Exeter Chiefs Women are a professional women's

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

team based in

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. They were founded in 2019 to take part in the

Premier 15s Premiership Women's Rugby – officially known as Allianz Premiership Women's Rugby or The Allianz PWR – is an annual semi-professional women's rugby union club competition at the highest level of the English rugby union system, and is run ...

, the top level of English women's rugby. They are based at

Sandy Park Sandy Park is a rugby union stadium and conference and banqueting centre in Exeter, England. It is the home ground of Exeter Chiefs, who from the 2010–11 season have been playing in Premiership Rugby, the top flight of the English rugby union ...

and are affiliated to

Premiership Rugby Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition, consisting of 10 clubs, and is the top division of the English rugby ...

Exeter Chiefs Exeter Chiefs (officially Exeter Rugby Club) is an England, English professional rugby union club based in Exeter, Devon. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby. The club was founded in 1871 and since 2006 has played i ...

. The side is coached by interim Head Coach, Steve Salvin. Poppy Leitch captains the side.

Creation

The creation of Exeter Chiefs Women was announced in September 2019 with former

England women's national rugby union team The England women's national rugby union team, commonly known as the Red Roses, represents England in women's international rugby union. They compete in the annual Women's Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales ...

players

Susie Appleby Susan Kathryn Appleby (born 21 December 1970) is a former English female rugby union player. She represented at the 1998 and 2002 Women's Rugby World Cup The Women's Rugby World Cup is the women's rugby union world championship which is org ...

and Amy Garnett announced as their first coaches. Exeter Chiefs announced they would be spending £500,000 to set up the women's team ahead of a scheduled audit of the Premier 15s by the

Rugby Football Union The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the Sports governing body, national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby ...

(RFU) in the hopes they would be able to apply for a place in the league. Their intent was to increase participation in rugby in Devon and

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

. In April 2020, as part of the review of the Premier 15s by the RFU, Exeter Chiefs Women were offered a place in the

2020-21 Premier 15s The symbol , known in Unicode as hyphen-minus, is the form of hyphen most commonly used in digital documents. On most keyboards, it is the only character that resembles a minus sign or a dash, so it is also used for these. The name ''hyphen-min ...

alongside

Sale Sharks Women Sale Sharks Women are a women's rugby union club based in Sale, Greater Manchester, England. They were founded in 2020 as the women's team of Premiership Rugby side Sale Sharks. They currently compete in Premiership Women's Rugby, the highest di ...

. The move attracted controversy as Exeter and Sale gained their places at the expense of

Waterloo Ladies Waterloo Ladies Rugby Football Club, known for sponsorship reasons as Firwood Waterloo Ladies Rugby Football Club, is a women's rugby union club based in Blundellsands, Merseyside, England. They are the women's team of Waterloo FC. They were estab ...

and

Richmond Women Richmond Women, formally Finchley RFC, is a women's rugby union team based in Richmond, London, England. They were founded in 1986 and played in the Women's Premiership. They are also the women's team of Richmond F.C. History Richmond Women we ...

, the latter of which was one of the most historically successful clubs in women's rugby. They were also criticised for not earning their place by promotion however some women's rugby analysts argued that women's rugby needed clubs that had the backing of professional men's sides in order to be viable in the long term. In their debut season, the side finished 6th in the Premier 15s. In their second season, they reached the first final in their history, against Harlequins Women in the Allianz Cup.

Premier 15s

Upon announcement of the team joining the Premier 15s, player recruitment was limited due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. A number of internationals from various countries joined the club. They played their first match in the Premier 15s against Gloucester-Hartpury.

PWR and Allianz Cup

Following the change from

to the PWR, Chiefs finished 6th in the inaugural season. The following season the finished second in the league, and beat Harlequins 57–12 in the inaugural Allianz Cup. Susie Appleby departed her role as Head Coach in 2025 after her contract was not renewed.

100 Caps

Captain Poppy Leitch became Exeter's first player to reach 100 caps in December 2024.

Squad

Notable players

The following are players which have represented their countries at the

Rugby World Cup The Men's Rugby World Cup is a rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams, the winners of which are recognised as the World championship, world champions of the sport. The tournament is administer ...

whilst playing for Exeter Chiefs:

References

External links

* {{Premiership Women's Rugby Women's rugby union teams in England Rugby clubs established in 2019 Sport in Exeter Exeter Chiefs 2019 establishments in England Premiership Women's Rugby teams