Young Guns: Eastern Suburbs lock Jago Sheppard

After a torrid time in the Exeter Chiefs academy, Jago Sheppard is hoping for a career revival in the Shute Shield competing for Eastern Suburbs.

Sheppard’s new club are reigning champions in Australia’s prestigious youth competition and the 18-year-old second row joins the likes of Kade Bird and Jacob Symes as youthful British players Down Under.

He said: “I can’t wait, I’m so looking forward to it. Now it’s getting closer, I feel I’m getting more nervous and excited about going over there. I’m hoping to gain a lot of experience, I’ll be playing with U20s again and I’m hoping to get more confidence out of it. It’ll be different to playing with men as it’ll be faster paced and that’s the sort of rugby I enjoy playing. It’s a pretty tough competition, Easts U20s won it last year so I’m really looking forward to learning from the coaches who are definitely at a very good level seeing they won the competition last year.”

Sheppard lasted just a season in the Exeter academy with the U18s as his side suffered numerous defeats in a toxic environment due to poor coaching.

He added: “The other players my age were good but I wouldn’t say much about the coaching. We weren’t very good, we won one game over the whole year and every time we’d lose we’d go back and do the same thing, we wouldn’t work on anything. It was a case of we lost but we’re going to do the same thing. When you lose you’re supposed to use it as a learning curve but we lost and carried on losing. We didn’t ever progress which was immensely frustrating. Truro College was a lot better as that’s where I developed more.

“Nothing really happened with Chiefs as we never learnt anything from our losses, and it’s hard when you only get six games together. Only one or two people got anything in terms of contracts at the end of the year. I played for the Chiefs U23 outreach squad and that was really enjoyable as we got to play at Sandy Park. That was good, so it might just be the U18s setup as this year they’re not doing very well again.”

At 6ft 4 and 15 st 4lbs, Sheppard is a slight second row but his prowess in the lineout is what makes him stand out from the rest. He said: “My line out ability is definitely the strongest part of my game. Whether it’s stealing possession, calling them and reading oppositions, I’m very good in that particular area of the game.

“I’m looking to improve on my physicality, more in defence than attack. I want to put size on in the gym, so I can make more dominant tackles. I’m hoping to be around 105kgs (16st 5lbs) as if I get to around 110kgs (17st 3lbs), I’ll be too heavy and my athleticism is definitely one of my stronger points, so I don’t want to get too heavy to the point where I can’t use that.”

Sheppard plans on staying in Australia for two years when he departs in March and is currently enjoying winding up his work colleagues about the contrast in weather. He said: “I want to go over to the Shute Shield play really well and hopefully win the tournament. Because it’s something I’ve never done before, I’m not sure where it can go and what will happen from there. I’m hoping to stay out with Easts again if they offer that to me providing I play well. I keep winding my work mates about how hot it’s going to be there.”

BEN JAYCOCK