Players will be told straight: Exeter boss Rob Baxter

Exeter Chiefs players can expect tough love from Rob Baxter between now and the end of the season as he gets back out on the training pitch after head coach Rob Hunter’s departure.

Hunter left the club following the Chiefs’ record 79-17 defeat against Gloucester at Kingsholm two weeks ago, and Baxter has returned to a hands-on role to heal a disconnect between players and coaches.

He says that he has a plan to get them back on track and to end the worst season since they were promoted to the Premiership 15 years ago on a positive note.

“All they’re (the players) going to get from me is honesty, and I’m going to treat them like grown-ups. I’m going to treat them like men, and they’re going to get honest reviews for me,” he said.

“They’re going to get an honest appraisal of training, how we play. And that is it, that’s it’s going to be that simple. Coming into work has been both exciting and not very nice, all in one, for obvious reasons.

“Do I love coaching? I do, so that’s about the best thing. That’s probably the only way I can answer. I think I know how to move us, move us forward, and that’s what I’m going to do.

“My expectation is I’ve got the job now, and I’ll do everything I can to be successful in it. I will say it’s still easier than it was when I was first coaching the Premiership.

“I was our head coach, defence coach, forwards coach, and Ali (Hepher), who is now on gardening leave, and I pretty much did it all. So it’s not something I’m not used to, and I’m very happy getting on with it,” he said.

Exeter are second-from-bottom in the Premiership table and have been on the wrong end of some bad scorelines, including the Gloucester debacle, which prompted the latest coaching upheaval.

“The whole season has been difficult. It’s not just been down to these last two or three weeks. We’ve had spells where we’ve kind of thought, probably falsely, that things were getting better,” Baxter admitted.

“And then we found out we had a bit of a lapse, and so the whole season has been a challenge. This is probably just a little bit of a magnification of that.

“I always used to say our biggest strength when we’re in a Championship was that we failed to get promoted loads of times. You know, we got relegated down to the fourth tier of English rugby.

“We had plans then for where we were going, and we made them happen. We have plans for where we are going now, and it’s my job to be part of making that happen.

“This is a scenario that we’ve done before, and my expectation is that we’ll do it again. We’ve got to reset our expectations. I think, almost without realising it, our expectations have dropped to a relatively low level.

“That’s what I said to the players. I think we’ve almost not realised, actually, that our expectations have dropped quite low.

“Our expectations of ourselves have got to change, and that will help us be a better team straight away, both in training and in playing,” he added.