Exeter Chiefs facing their ‘toughest challenge’ under Rob Baxter

Baxter is the longest-serving director of rugby in the Premiership having taken over at Sandy Park in 2009.

Having led Exeter to promotion to the top flight in 2010 he guided the club to six successive Premiership finals between 2016 and 2021, winning two of them.

Exeter also lifted the 2020 European Champions Cup under his leadership – the last time and English team has reached the final of Europe’s premier competition.

And he says that experience leads him to know that clubs can turn bad times around and rise to the top again:

“You’ve got to be very careful in rugby you don’t have very short memories,” Baxter added, with Exeter travelling to bottom-of-the-table Newcastle Falcons on Friday.

“Leicester spent a couple of years like this and it actually became a very important part of where they ended up, and they ended up being a Premiership-winning team.

“But they could’ve got relegated and nobody now really talks about that bit too much because afterwards they won.

“That’s where you’ve got to decide are you going to embrace the challenge and enjoy it, grow through it and use it and you get to see things with a real clarity around organisations and functions – all the things that are in place, and then you move on from there.”