It is only a short trip from Exeter to Bath but it has been a long road to the England camp for Dave Ewers.
He was a schoolboy enjoying life in his native Zimbabwe when Robert Mugabe’s despotic regime erupted into violence and farms were seized from white land-owners. Now he has been called into Eddie Jones’s training squad for the RBS Six Nations Championship clash with Wales and admits that when he does get his chance it would feel like journey’s end.
“There would definitely be some tears from my mum,” the Exeter Chiefs flanker says before heading for England’s camp at the University of Bath. “She would be very emotional. Moving countries was stressful and they must have wondered if it was the right thing for us kids. [If I got a cap] I don’t think it would be relief, but there’d be a certain feeling of having made the right decision. Hopefully, I can make them proud.”
“A lot of people were shocked that I was from Africa and white
Ewers was 13 when Peter and Teresa fled. His father was a teacher and working on a farm at the time. Other family members were working on other seized farms in the highlands. The 25-year-old does not like to talk too much about what happened, but another expatriate has shed some light on the horrors. David Pocock, the Australian star of the World Cup, was 12 when his family were told that they had 90 days to leave. He said a close family friend was shot dead in an ambush. As they packed, they discovered their neighbour had also been killed. Ewers, himself, has said that he did become bitter about the past — although his family escaped without being embroiled in the violence — but needed to move on or it would eat him up.
Ewers clearly has done that to winning effect. “I loved growing up there,” he says. “I was aware of what was happening, but I had never been on a plane. It was exciting and then it hits you — this is home now. I got a little bit of stick. A lot of people were shocked that I was from Africa and white. I struggled a bit, but would have struggled a lot more if I hadn’t found rugby.”
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A dozen years on, he has just had about 12 weeks out with a knee injury. Jones clearly rates him highly, given that he named him in his first 33-man squad despite his time on the sidelines. Last year’s Aviva Premiership stats helped — 200 carries to James Haskell’s 111; 400 metres to Tom Wood’s 176. On Sunday he played an hour as Exeter’s fine season continued with a 26-17 win over Bath. It was enough.
He was born in Harare but it was Exeter who delivered a dream. Hitherto, he had been more of a cricketer but his grandparents enrolled him at Ivybridge Community College. It became tied to the academy at Exeter. Before long Ewers was living in the Chiefs’ lodge alongside team-mates, such as Jack Nowell and Henry Slade.
“There were eight of us,” he says. “It was an absolute mess. Two years ago me and Sladey sat down and turned [on] the TV. We’d grown up together all these years, watching England play, and there was Jack. It was surreal. We’d all said, ‘Imagine if one day we all played for Chiefs.’ ”
Goalposts have been moved by men on the cusp with the back row and the centre being areas of the most protracted debate in England recently.
Stats make a strong case for inclusion
That said, something special is happening down the M5 where Ewers began as a No 8 before being switched to the blind side by Rob Baxter, the Exeter head coach.
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His favourite back-row forwards betray his methodology. He names Jacques Burger, the battle-scarred Namibia and Saracens flanker, and Schalk Burger, the Springbok battering ram. “I just love how physical they are and how they throw their bodies into everything,” he says. “You have to take your hat off to people who fly in with no regard for themselves.”
Ewers will probably have to bide his time a little longer to make his England bow, but it is clearly coming after the disappointment of missing last year’s Six Nations and the World Cup.
“I was just gutted for the boys,” he says. “At the same time I was proud of the boys from here who were involved. It was always a difficult group and we weren’t that far off. It could have been so much different. But whatever happened in the World Cup it was always going to be exciting now with players who’ve come up together coming through — Sladey, Nowellsy, Anthony Watson.”
He is too modest to add himself to the list, but the boy from Mutare is maturing fast and an epic journey to the top tier is approaching a major milepost.