Baxter delighted to add new faces
By Mark Stevens
14/8/21
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby, Rob Baxter, was all smiles today after adding two new faces to his squad ahead of the 2021/22 season.
In what is his first foray into the market during the close season, Baxter has bolstered his options up front with the signing of prop Sam Nixon and lock Ryan McCauley.
Tight-head Nixon, 24, arrives in Devon from French side Bayonne, while McCauley, also 24, has joined from Aussie outfit, Western Force, on a short-term deal.
“They are two good signings for us,” said Baxter. “First and foremost, guys won’t be surprised what with Tomas Francis leaving and Marcus Street having an operation over the summer, we were starting to look a little thin in that area.
“Obviously, we’ve got Harry Williams and Josh Iosefa-Scott, together with young guys like Matt Johnson and Alfie Petch, who are developing really well, but we felt we didn’t want to put too much on one or two shoulders.
“We’ve looked at Sam previously, when he was playing at Bath, and fair play to him, he’s gone off to Bayonne for a season, played a lot of games, endured a lot of tough scrums, but he’s stuck in there and shown some qualities that I really like the look of. Therefore, when the opportunity came to bring him in, it was one I didn’t want to ignore.”
Baxter added: “Equally, it’s kind of similar with Ryan. Right now, we’ve got the likes of Jonny Gray, Dave Ewers and Jacques Vermeulen all recovering from operations, Jonny Hill is going to miss the start of the season, so it all started to add up that we maybe a little light in the back five.
“Again, we had the opportunity to bring Ryan here on a short-term deal until December, after which we hope to have a lot more bodies back on deck. He’s a player, though, that is just starting to come through as a real set-piece forward in Australia.
“When I knew he was a possible option, I spoke to Greg Holmes about him, I asked him what his set-piece work was like, and he gave him a pretty glowing report. Over the years we’ve had quite a few guys come from Australia and they are normally pretty switched on and quick learners, so we’re confident he will get up to speed quickly.”
The two newcomers join Iosefa-Scott and Irishman Sean O’Brien as new faces for the upcoming campaign, which gets underway with a pre-season hit out against Munster at Sandy Park on September 11, before the Chiefs travel to Leicester Tigers a week later for their opening Gallagher Premiership fixture.
“We are where we want to be squad-wise,” added Baxter. “Obviously, you always want to be stronger, but I feel we have a good set of players here; there has not been a lot of changes and we’ve not had to introduce too many people our systems. Of course, we will tinker with a few things and add a few layers and a bit of understanding to things, but generally we’re in a good place.
“The more I have looked at last season, I just felt we needed to refresh mentally and physically after what was a long stretch. If I’m honest, I think we lost more on mind-set, rather than physical state.
“Since we’ve come back, we’ve talked about going back to basics, working on our core fundamentals, our standards we want to live by, and just how we want to go about things. It’s been a nice process for us all revisiting that and now I’m looking forward to seeing how we go.”