Exeter’s rebuild is way ahead of schedule – here is why

There are exoduses, and then there are exoduses. And the one from Exeter Chiefs over the past two summers has been no half measure. Almost the whole group that won a Premiership and Champions Cup double in 2020, plus several additional players to have arrived at Sandy Park since that fantastic achievement, are now gone. That is no exaggeration.

Those departed players, club icons among them, have left fond memories and a significant rebuild operation. But, after finishing seventh for the second consecutive Premiership season in 2022-23, Chiefs have begun the current campaign convincingly. After resisting Bristol Bears on Sunday, winning 29-20, they are top of the league and ahead of schedule with the Exeter 2.0 project. Here are five factors that have contributed so far.

Foresight and opportunistic recruitment

Perspective will never be an issue while Rob Baxter is at the helm. Neither, one suspects, will panic. Indeed, Baxter can chart this promising patch back to the pandemic when Exeter chose short-term gain and future pain. They took advantage of a rule that made only 75 per cent of new contracts count towards the salary cap, knowing that extending a glut of deals, before the given deadline would cause them to reshape the roster later.

“It’s like anything in life, when you’re right in the middle of something, fewer things happen out of the blue,” Baxter explained last week. “I remember saying to our board when we re-signed everybody during Covid because we could, that we were unlikely to build what would look like on paper a stronger squad for a fair while.

“You could see the age they [senior players] were going to get to, that they were going to come off contract into a reduced salary cap year and they were front-line players in the European game and the international game. It’s not been something that I kind of haven’t been semi-planning for a while.”

One would put Luke Cowan-Dickie, Jack Nowell, the Simmonds brothers and Dave Ewers into this bracket. Jonny Hill, Tom O’Flaherty and Sam Skinner all left in 2022 as well. As a response, Exeter have been canny with recruitment, and quick to strike. Dan Frost, an all-action hooker, Greg Fisilau, a combative back-rower, and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, an explosive, hard-working wing, are three ex-Wasps thriving in Devon, and good case studies. Baxter’s pursuit of Fisilau is a fine example of how he profiles positional needs and seizes opportunities.

On Wednesday, Baxter declared himself “delighted” with Fisilau, who started the first three Premiership games at No 8. The 21-year-old was described as “deceptively strong” with a “massive enthusiasm to carry” and an uncanny ability to slide or bounce off the first point of contact. Sam Simmonds comes to mind quite quickly, and Ross Vintcent, an ex-Italy Under-20 international who graduated from Exeter University, is another athletic back-rower who will be given a chance to establish himself. Baxter’s research is diligent.

“We keep a pretty good eye on the England Under-18 and Under-20 systems and there is the family connection with his dad [Keni], who played for a long time at Plymouth,” he added of Fisilau. “As soon as I saw that name, I kept a little bit of an eye on him. We were probably interested in him before things happened at Wasps anyway.

“If you look at their senior side, they had a strong contingent of back-row forwards and there would have been a situation when he came off contract at Wasps where we would have liked an opportunity to talk to him because maybe he would have had limited opportunities at Wasps when you think they had the Willis brothers [Jack and Tom], [Nizaam] Carr, Thomas Young. Without a doubt, he’d have been one of the younger players we would have approached.”

Capitalising on World Cup and Slade’s presence

Baxter labelled the league table as “a little false” on Sunday evening, under no illusions that Exeter have had three games at Sandy Park and have not been as ravaged by international call-ups as rivals such as Saracens, whom they thrashed 65-10 in their opening league encounter. Prior to that, Chiefs had used the Premiership Cup to field strong line-ups.

They needed to, really, because a revamped squad had to build cohesion somehow. An additional bonus, though, was the presence of Henry Slade. Overlooked for England’s final World Cup group of 33, the centre was free to start on Sept 9 when a green Bristol team was dispatched 75-0 in the first Premiership Cup pool match.

Having a senior playmaker around for the bulk of preseason is invaluable as far as direction and the implementation of new ideas. Baxter believes that the player himself, while “hugely disappointed” in his England snub, has been reinvigorated in turn.

“To me, he’s looking a little bit like the 23- or 24-year-old Henry Slade,” Baxter said. “He’s definitely got his mojo there because he’s buying into what the group are about, which is being young, energetic, enthusiastic, playing with smiles on faces and working really hard. He’s bought into that and it’s recreated him.

“When you get left out of an international team, you only have two choices. You plod along or you reinvent yourself and think about what got you into England set-up in the first place and why people started talking about you as a really good player. To me, [the latter] is exactly what Sladey is doing. I can’t give him any more credit than that. That’s the kind of guy who’ll get back into the England set-up. If he doesn’t, he’ll drive what we do as a club.”

Slade, in the last year of his contract and sure to be receiving plentiful interest as he mulls his future, has conjured moments of sheer quality. Against Sale, in a 43-0 thrashing of Alex Sanderson’s men, he pressed out of defensive line to gather a loose ball beautifully before sending Feyi-Waboso to the try-line with a flicked pass. A week later, his nine points from the tee, as Bristol squandered 10, proved vital.

As Baxter has stressed, a trip to Franklin’s Gardens will be a tougher gauge of progress. Then again, we are already four matches into a regular season that only comprises 18 games. That is almost a quarter of the race to the play-offs.

“The one thing that hurt us in the last couple of years is not picking up points early,” Baxter said in the build-up to last weekend. “We were chasing and missed out. It is nice to be ahead of the game. That creates excitement and enjoyment and you can get on a flow. I don’t want to limit the team in any way. At the same time, I’m not going to put expectation in front of them, because that could lead to disappointment and they don’t deserve that.”

Scrum, scrum, scrum

Ross McMillan, the well-travelled former hooker, might not make too many ‘signing of the season’ shortlists when they are drawn up next spring. But those at Exeter are certainly singing his praises. Picked up from London Irish as an assistant forwards coach, McMillan is credited with galvanising the Chiefs scrum.

This has been an area of urgent priority, as signalled prior to McMillan’s appointment by the additions of Nika Abuladze, the Lelos loosehead who laid waste to Wales in a famous win for Georgia a year ago, and Ehren Painter, the burly tighthead who grew up at Northampton Saints. Rusi Tuima’s shift from back row to lock, adding valuable heft to the engine room, has also helped.

Bristol paid a compliment to Exeter’s solidity in this facet by changing their entire starting front row on the half-hour mark. It could not spare them. Abuladze arrived from the bench as a replacement for Scott Sio and caused the Bears to creak and crumble. The telling penalty, converted by Slade, came from the set-piece.

Backing youth to learn on the job

Clearly, more difficult periods lie ahead for Exeter. Josh Hodge will be sidelined for up to 12 weeks following an operation on his dislocated elbow. Sam Maunder is recovering from reconstructive surgeries to his knee. Richard Capstick, Jonny Gray and Christ Tshiunza are all nursing various ailments as well. Baxter, though, has suggested that a youthful and “fresh” squad, which is smaller than Chiefs usually carry with around 37 players, should be able to “deal with injury issues” better.

He is evidently relishing the responsibility of guiding individuals through the early stages of their careers. Harvey Skinner, stepping up to fill the boots of Joe Simmonds at fly-half, is one such example. Baxter grinned on Sunday as he spoke of the “doubt and indecision” that he saw creeping in with Bristol 13-7 up and the match growing “stodgy”. That Chiefs rallied was a source of immense pride and excitement. “If you stick together and stick at things, that’s the golden ticket as a coach,” Baxter said.

“I asked the lads at half-time: ‘Are they hurting us or are we hurting ourselves?’” he added. “They all knew it, but knowing it and dealing with it are two different things. This is why we have to take our time with these players. Just going ‘stop making mistakes’ isn’t coaching. Anyone can do that. You can stand in the grandstand and do that.

“The key is for us to walk and talk through it. How did this pull that error out of you? Did we keep communicating? Did we set up right for that play? We can talk through things that will take the pressure off them and remove scenarios where they feel forced into making the next mistake. If we want to really learn from today, we can take so many steps forward.”

Baxter seems beyond committed to this rebuild. He is positively buzzing about it, which makes Exeter, table-toppers again, such an intriguing subplot for the rest of the Premiership season.