'I don't think it is as big a shift as some people are saying'

Rob Baxter has played down the significance of no longer having a hands-on match day role at Exeter, the director of rugby instead allowing head coach Ali Hepher and his assistants to look after the team. The new arrangement came into force for last weekend’s Gallagher Premiership opener, the Sandy Park win over Leicester which witnessed the long-serving Baxter sitting away from the coaches’ box.

It was September 7, in the run-up to the new season launch against defending champions Tigers, when Hepher explained the change in dynamic surrounding the Exeter management at weekends for the 2022/23 campaign. “On match days, Rob necessarily won’t be with the team so I’ll be leading that side of things,” explained Hepher.

“He will be travelling separately. He will be at all the games, he will be very much involved with everything we do but he won’t be travelling with the team so pre-match, matchday post-match I will be dealing with it…

“I think he will still do the media side of stuff through the week but on match days, it will be down to myself and the other coaches. Yeah, a bit of a change in the role but something exciting to get on with.”

Baxter did indeed do the Exeter media briefing this week ahead of Sunday’s round two game at Worcester and he used the opportunity to play down what has been said in some quarters about his less hands-on involvement on match day.

“It wasn’t massively different,” said Baxter about his day one experience last Saturday when watching the Exeter win over Leicester sitting away from his usual position in the stand. “I was still sat around the coaches, still had radio, I could have a bit of input if required. I don’t think it is as big a shift as some people are saying. I am still in the office pretty much as I was before, we still have our standard selection meeting, still discuss how we are going to play.

“How we play – how we attack and how we defend – is largely driven by your attack, your forwards and defence coaches and I was (always) a bit, ‘I don’t like that’ or ‘I like it a little bit’ and that dictates elements of it. That part hasn’t changed but what I was finding was Ali should be developing in his role.

“All our coaches should develop in their roles and he has been very influential at the club for a very long time, takes big responsibility for a lot of areas of how we play and what we do and how we prepare and for me this just feels like taking on the next stage of our preparation.

“If I’m not at training sessions, which quite often happens, and Ali runs through the week, for me it makes sense that the final messages and the half-time checkup and bits and pieces should come from Ali, that makes complete common sense to me.

“I have been a voice in there for a long time, so this also creates a bit of freshness and adds that that little bit of extra responsibility to that coaching team who do that half-times. But I will be honest with you, over the last four, five years my half-time has been limited anyway.

“Now whether that is because on the whole the last five, six years things have been ticking along pretty well and half-times don’t often have to be about rants and raves… People are trying to think it is a way bigger shift, that it is, ‘There you go lads, off you go and get on with it’.

“It’s not like that. We have always coached as a group. We have always thought about where we want to go as a group. That part of it is exactly the same.”