{"id":27437,"date":"2026-03-25T15:56:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/joseph-dweba-exeter-chiefs-hooker-backed-to-force-way-into-front-row\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T15:56:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:56:04","slug":"joseph-dweba-exeter-chiefs-hooker-backed-to-force-way-into-front-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/joseph-dweba-exeter-chiefs-hooker-backed-to-force-way-into-front-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Dweba: Exeter Chiefs hooker backed to force way into front row"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter expects hooker Joseph Dweba to force his way back into his side soon.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c70wv1ylkz9o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">South African summer signing from Stormers<\/a> has been the Chiefs&#8217; first-choice this season, starting eight Prem games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But the 30-year-old has featured just once since the end of January in the 66-14 Prem Rugby Cup final loss at Leicester. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dweba was given an extended break over the Six Nations to go home to see his family, but his return was hit by travel disruption caused by the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think he&#8217;s been one of the factors in improving large parts of how we played over the season,&#8221; said Baxter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think without doubt I think Joe knows he was a bit off the pace in the Prem Cup final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Ideally we would have picked him the week before and maybe given him a couple of games, but the travel disruption meant that obviously he came into that game after a period of not just disrupted playing time, but disrupted training time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But he&#8217;s back on it now, he&#8217;s working hard, doing lots of extras. He&#8217;s going to get sharp again and he&#8217;ll be back in the side relatively quickly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cm2kv80rm29o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter expects hooker Joseph Dweba to force his way back into his side soon. The South African summer signing from Stormers has been the Chiefs&#8217; first-choice this season, starting eight Prem games. But the 30-year-old has featured just once since the end of January in the 66-14 Prem Rugby [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27439,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27437\/revisions\/27439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}