It’s a long way from Somerset to Chicago, but it’s the Windy City where the Bath, Exeter and England center Ollie Devoto will end his career on Sunday, seeking to help the Chicago Hounds beat the California Legion for a first Major League Rugby crown.

“It’ll be a special day for the team and it’ll be a special day personally as well,” Devoto said, preferring not to predict a result. “My family are coming out for one last go. As long as we give the best account of ourselves, we’ll put ourselves in a good position.”

The Hounds have certainly done that this year, winning all 10 regular-season games before putting a half-century on Old Glory DC in the playoffs. Hosting the championship game at their SeatGeek Stadium home in Bridgeview, about 30 minutes outside downtown Chicago, they’ll start heavy favorites. Average crowds run about 4,000 to 5,000 but more than 10,000 have watched a championship game at the stadium before and the Hounds weren’t playing then. Maybe some in town for the opening of Barack Obama’s presidential center will stay on to take in some rugby. Obama has form, after all.

Devoto arrived in Illinois for the 2025 MLR season. He’d had a successful career at home – Premiership and European titles with Exeter, two caps for England – but as it will in rugby, injury brought him low.

“I spent eight years at Exeter,” he said, “and I had a couple of quite serious operations on my hips, and I kind of knew my time was coming to an end. I looked at all options: France, other countries. I was close to retiring, putting my boots down, but I was just far from that. I missed the changing room and that sense of camaraderie. So I got in contact with Taunton.”

The Somerset club were in England’s fourth tier. Devoto loved it: “I wanted to keep the body going, and I thought I’d give myself six months and then if nothing came up, I’d either continue to play for Taunton or think about retiring. So I was very lucky that James English, the CEO at Chicago Hounds, got in contact. I jumped at that opportunity.”

English is an Englishman who worked in New York when the city had a champion MLR team. He knows the harsh challenges and harsher truths of American rugby as well as anyone around the oval world. Devoto, his wife Sophie and their young family faced a sharp culture shock when they swapped rural Taunton for urban Chicago but it swiftly proved a good move. On the field, the Englishman was an experienced head to help nurture homegrown talent after the league’s traumatic contraction to just six teams prompted a new focus on US-qualified players.

Devoto speaks highly of the Hounds’ setup under majority owner Peter Bernick and head coach Chris Latham, the great Australian full-back.

“I’d honestly say the setup and the facilities that Chicago has are as good, if not better, than when I was at the Chiefs,” Devoto said. “What I mean by that is everything’s there. We’re in one place. Chicago’s winter is notoriously bad, so we were training in this huge dome, and everything was there to set us up to be as professional as possible. I think I’m right in saying that Chicago is one of the better teams in the league, facilities-wise.

“I’d say there are slightly different styles of coaching. Chris has been fantastic. He’s very honest, wears his heart on his sleeve, and he’s almost a second father figure to a lot of the team. He’s been brilliant. And then also Noel Reid, he had stints with Leinster and Leicester, so I knew of him before signing but he’s been a revelation, because he brings that detail from the Premiership and from Ireland. The combination of Chris and him works perfectly, especially with the young American players being exposed to that level of detail you would get in the English Premiership. I would say that’s definitely behind our success.”

Latham, Devoto said, can take and give a bit of ribbing, about the Lions and Jason Robinson in 2001 or Australia, England and the 2003 World Cup. Devoto laughed fondly about his coach’s decision to wear an old World Cup jersey, “skin-tight” these days, for a recent session. Asked to name young American Hounds who have particularly impressed him in Chicago, Devoto named two men who play outside him, both from Indiana.

“There’s two guys in particular who I feel have come on leaps and bounds, just in my time here: Peyton Wall and Noah Brown. They’re scoring tries for fun at the moment, and it’s no coincidence that they’re some of the most keen to learn and sort of soak it in. I guess I’d like to think that I’ve helped them in some way.

“There is potential for hopefully the MLR and American rugby as a whole to grow massively. I think there’s such an opportunity there. It hasn’t been taken yet, and they’re way off competing with any other American sport, but Americans love their combat sports … and for whatever reason, they haven’t quite nailed rugby yet. I hope they do.”

So does World Rugby, placing the 2031 men’s World Cup and 2033 women’s World Cup on US soil. MLR is determined to play a central role. Alex Magleby, co-president of the league, recently indicated that one of this season’s six teams, Anthem RC of North Carolina, is set to disappear, with the end of the three-year World Rugby deal that created it as a nursery for US talent. Magleby also said new teams may be coming, with Canada a possibility again. The disappearance of the Toronto Arrows and MLR’s refocus on American talent was a blow for the game north of the border but Devoto’s Hounds are stiffened by a serious Canadian spine of Lucas Rumball, Mason Flesch and Matthew Orowu.

In the championship, the Hounds will face a California team that have survived a nomadic season, playing up and down their huge home state – as it happens also under a Wallaby great, hooker-turned-CEO Adam Freier.

Of Chicago, Devoto said: “I just couldn’t think of a better way to end my career than with that special group. Peter’s has had a massive influence. You’ve got Satch [Matt Satchwell] and Phil [Groves] as well, who are also owners. They’ve been brilliant. And James English, he’s got a goal of getting the Hounds to compete with the rest of the Chicago sports teams,”.

“That’s his goal. We’re way off at the moment but there’s incremental steps there, and I think we’ve got to be one of the most successful Chicago teams this season. Winning helps. You see more and more people coming, because we’re 11-0 now, looking to go 12-0.”

Whether or not the Hounds become MLR’s first unbeaten champions, Devoto’s career will be finished after the final whistle. At the end of year one he took his family traveling, down the west coast in a big RV. This year, he’ll wrap things up in Chicago before heading back to Britain, infant daughter Millie in tow and young son Archie “singing in an American accent” all the way. Devoto has been studying to be a surveyor but once home, “without selling myself here, I’m open to anything. I’d like to try all sorts of stuff.

“I’d never say no to rugby. The people are what I’ll miss. The aim is to get something close to that kind of environment where you’re part of something that’s much bigger than yourself. That’s what I’ll miss the most.”

• The MLR Championship game kicks off 8pm ET Sunday, on ESPN2 and ESPN+ in the US and available around the world.

• Martin Pengelly writes on rugby in the US on Substack, at The National Maul.