Having departed the East Midlands this summer for a new start in the Westcountry, the experienced No.8 wasted little time in making his mark for Rob Baxter's side, scoring two tries on his league debut in Exeter's 52-0 thumping of newly-promoted London Welsh.

It was a dream start not only for Waldrom and the Chiefs, but the England international knows a much stiffer test awaits his new club when the Tigers rock up in town this weekend.

“They pride themselves on winning away from home and trying to get as many points as possible and we’ve got to take the same approach,” said Waldrom. “It was nice to get five points away from home first up, but we’ve got a big block of games coming up so we need to get some more points.

“We’ve set ourselves some goals and we got off to a good start on Sunday.”

Although only a few months into life with Exeter, Waldrom admits he has settled well to his new surroundings and believes the Chiefs have what it takes to compete against the very best in the Aviva Premiership. Indeed, he says he and his team-mates are keen to prove a point to the pundits who wrote them off before the start of the term.

“It was interesting to see people saying we were going to be off the pace and not in the top six,” said the New Zealander. “We can’t worry about what they think, we can only worry about what we do on a rugby field.

“You want to prove people wrong but we’ve taken one step forward, we don’t want to take two steps back and have everyone writing us off again.

“We’ve got to keep building and taking bits of the game we’re very happy with. There were bits in the game we weren’t happy with but we’ve talked about them and we’re heading in the right direction.”

Waldrom - who spent four years with the Tigers, making 115 appearances - not only claimed a try double last time out, but he was instrumental in a Chiefs display that also reaped it's rewards with tries for Dave Ewers, Sam Hill, Ian Whitten, Jack Arnott and Chrysander Botha.

The former Hurricanes player, who has won five England caps, enjoyed the way the Chiefs played against the Exiles and thinks he will thrive in his new surroundings.

“It’s good when you’ve got a licence to go out and play and enjoy yourself,” he said. “That suits me down to a tee. It’s heads-up rugby which I really enjoy and it paid off on Sunday.”

With Saturday also marking the grand re-opening of the expanded Sandy Park, Waldrom expects there to be a terrific atmosphere inside for the visit of the ten-time English champions.

He said: “Everyone’s buzzing to get back to Sandy Park. We’ve been away from it for a while but now we’re back there and it doesn’t getting any bigger than Tigers coming down. It’s going to be a big occasion and one I’m definitely looking forward to.”