With both parents standing at over six feet tall, Ollie Chessum was always going to be a giant.
Yet the speed at which he has shot through the ranks at Leicester Tigers, England and now The British & Irish Lions is a growth spurt of a very different kind.
The 24-year-old has been selected for his first Lions Tour less than five years after his senior debut, again underlining his penchant for quick progress. Indeed, less than a decade after picking up a rugby ball for the first time, he was clutching the red rose on his England training jacket and belting out ‘God Save the Queen’.
Before making the grade at Tigers, Chessum was playing for Nottingham in the Championship and if you look back a further 12 months, you would find him in the Kesteven Rugby Club second XV.
From Newark to Nottingham and Sleaford to Sydney, it has been a meteoric rise.
RUGBY THIRD IN LINE
Chessum was the first of three sons born to 6ft2in Michelle and 6ft5in Paddy, and so he was blessed with a natural athleticism which he put to good use.
His younger brother Lewis is also in the Tigers ranks and a former England U20s captain.
Football and cricket were Ollie’s first loves, with cricket at the forefront of his early years. At Carre’s Grammar School in Lincolnshire, he continued to play into his teens, and his parents certainly preferred him to stick to runs and wickets, rather than lineouts and scrums.
“He came home one evening and said he’d been picked to play rugby,” mother Michelle told the Six Nations website.
“I explicitly remember saying, ‘there’s no way you can play, they’ll kill you, you don’t know what you’re doing.’
“He had never played before then. We weren’t a particularly big rugby family although we did follow international rugby.”
That lack of rugby pedigree did wonders for Chessum’s game.
“I think because he was late to rugby, he was very coachable. He didn’t think he knew everything and so he was just open to absolutely anything,” said Head of Rugby and Sport at Carre’s Grammar School, James Offer.
“There are so many people you coach who have enormous potential, but they just don’t listen to you, or just don’t take the information onboard.
“I think it’s just so obvious that he is that person who listens.”
TIGERS ROARING
Even in his formative years, Chessum developed a reputation for excellent leadership.
Outside of school, he initially joined Newark Rugby Club but did not quite manage to breakthrough and instead hopped over to Kesteven on the advice of his cousin, Ben. His reputation within academy rugby began to soar.
Leicester Tigers came calling but Chessum, soon after after joining, dropped out of their Developing Player Programme because he wasn't enjoying it.
He eventually signed for the Championship's Nottingham at 18, and he impressed so much after 11 appearances that he signed for Tigers in 2020.
“I came out of school and was in the academy for just a few weeks before I went to Nottingham,” he told the Telegraph.
“I was clueless. I didn’t know what to do in the gym. I had to learn everything from scratch. It has definitely helped to motivate me and I think I am happy I had that experience. I wouldn’t call it a setback, but it is not all smooth sailing. It is not a constant upward curve that sometimes you expect.
“I had to take a step back, but that has helped push me forward, even if I didn’t get to where I wanted to when I was 18-19.”
Following a strong season with Nottingham in 2019-2020 and appearances for Leicester in the Premiership Rugby Shield, Chessum returned to his boyhood club permanently ahead of the 2020-21 season.
“I remember sitting as a Tigers fan, saying I’d love to be an S&C coach, as I’d never believe I’d be playing for the first team,” he told the i newspaper in 2022.
He made his debut in August 2020, once rugby had resumed following an enforced break through Covid, and went from fringe to first team almost straight away under head coach Steve Borthwick.
“I go back to when I was coaching Leicester, and there was this 18-year-old I had heard about, and had watched some of his games for Nottingham,” Borthwick told the Telegraph.
“I watched him run. It was 2020 in that Covid period, when you had to run in lanes and social distance. I watched him and was full of admiration for how hard he pushed himself. He could push and push and push.
“You look at young players and think ‘who’s going to be the guy to take this team forward?’ This guy could be one of those if he is willing to push himself that hard. Very early on when I was at Leicester Tigers he was identified by all the coaches as a guy who was going to grow into a big leadership role.”
PREMIERSHIP TITLE AND ENGLAND RECOGNITION
Adaptable, in the first half of the 2021-22 season alone, Chessum, who is 6ft7in, started in both lock positions, blindside flanker and No 8.
It turned into a season to remember. He was part of the Leicester side that won its opening 15 games of the 2021-22 season, and played the full 80 minutes as Tigers beat Saracens to win that year’s final.
Earlier that year, he made his England debut in the 2022 Six Nations against Italy.
“When I look back now I see a completely different player,” he says. “I was a bit of a boy in a man’s game.”
When he was then named in the England squad for the 2022 Championship finale against France, former Kesteven coach Phil Eagle could not believe his luck.
“I had bought some ridiculously priced tickets for the game, not ever thinking that he’d be playing at the Stade de France,” he told the Six Nations website.
“France had already won by the time he came on but I think I was probably the loudest Englishman in the stand at that point, much to my wife’s dismay.”
Chessum quickly forced a vital second-row partnership with Maro Itoje, now his England and Lions captain. Injury aside, he has been a constant presence in England’s engine room and is now once again playing under Borthwick.
He has won 28 England caps and has been touted as a potential future captain.
His first England coach, Eddie Jones, compared him to Courtney Lawes and Chessum admits he has learned plenty from the 100-cap England legend and two-time Lions tourist.
“He’s experienced it all – Lions tours, a World Cup final as well. He’s one of the best blokes to learn from in the game. Eddie sees me in his mould but at the same time, I see myself as me – I offer something different as a player.”
‘I’D HAVE LAUGHED IN YOUR FACE’
Chessum is one of six second rows selected by head coach Andy Farrell, alongside Itoje, Ireland trio Tadhg Beirne, Joe McCarthy and James Ryan, and Scotland’s Scott Cummings.
He faced a nervous wait while the Lions announced their squad on May 8, but is now desperate to take his opportunity.
“When you make your international debut, you want to keep building to that next step, but I thought there’s no way,” he said.
“Even though I’d played my international debut, I thought ‘I’m so out of my depth here, how do lads go from international rugby to being the best of that bunch?’.
“Four years ago, I’d probably have laughed in your face if you told me I would be here. But I’m over the moon.
“Everyone has got their own journey and I’m not going to knock mine, it’s got me here.”
