Exeter boss Rob Baxter says Ehren Painter’s commitment to battling back from a serious knee injury convinced the club to offer him a new deal.
The 28-year-old tight-head prop signed a new contract last week as he returns to fitness after 15 months out.
As well as tearing his anterior cruciate ligament, Painter also suffered cartilage damage after being hurt in training in January 2025.
“The key behind us offering him a new deal is how good he’s been, how diligent he’s been,” Baxter told BBC Sport.
“He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do – he’s actually probably lighter, nimbler, moving better in a way than he probably was when he got injured.
“So he’s ticked an awful lot of boxes, and because of that diligence through that rehab and how he’s come back from it, where his strength scores are, all that stuff, that’s the big driver for us to offer him a deal because he had some very, very good performances in previous seasons, particularly built around his scrumming prowess.
“We think that’s going to be important for us at times next season when there are games that are decided around the set-piece through a big chunk of the season.”
Painter’s last Exeter match was a European Champions Cup loss to Toulouse on 15 December 2024.
He joined Champ side Cornish Pirates on loan at the start of May as he upped his rehabilitation and was also part of an Exeter XV that played the Cornwall county side in a friendly earlier this month.
But with the likes of Josh Iosefa-Scott, Jimmy Roots and Bachuki Tchumbadze all fit, Baxter says Painter may have to wait until next season to pull on a Chiefs shirt once again.
He added: “[Those players] have got that game time under their belt so it’s a challenge because all the other games have just run out now – the Championship’s finished with the clubs we’re involved with, as is National One, we don’t have any more friendly fixtures or anything.
“So really it’s just him training as hard as he can for an opportunity that may arise, because it’s weird how often they do happen in the later stage of the season that players just suddenly come into teams as bigger games happen.
“He’s up and running, he’s ready to go, he’s training very hard, he’s doing a lot of extras, he’s doing everything we can ask him to do, but whether we can get him into a game scenario is difficult to say.”