Trio agree new deals

Picture: Exeter Rugby Club

 

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter has spoken of his delight after another three of his first-team squad today committed their futures to the Aviva Premiership club.

Prop Carl Rimmer, together with scrum-half Will Chudley and centre Phil Dollman, have all agreed to extend their stays at Sandy Park for a further two years following talks with Baxter in recent weeks.

The news is yet another welcome boost for the Chiefs, who last week confirmed that forwards Luke Cowan-Dickie and Chris Whitehead, had also agreed new terms.

Baxter, who is hopeful of agreeing terms with a number of other Exeter players in the coming weeks, said: “I’m very pleased that the three guys have agreed to stay with us. At the moment we are starting to talk to players who we want around here and I think having these guys sign is fantastic in terms of where we want to go in the next two, three, four years.

“As I’ve said before, continuity is always important in any squad and retention is the often a bigger part of the job that recruitment. With all these guys, we have spent a lot of time on recruiting them and they weren’t things we went into lightly. That is why when you get hold of good guys, you want them to stay.”

For Rimmer and Chudley – both of whom were recruited last summer from Championship sides Cornish Pirates and Newcastle Falcons respectively – their impressive efforts already this season have not gone unnoticed and have been duly rewarded with new deals.

Meanwhile, Dollman is more established within the Chiefs ranks having become Baxter’s first-ever signing as head coach when he joined from Newport-Gwent Dragons in the summer of 2009.

Discussing the new deals, Baxter added: “Will has come into the club this year and was handed an opportunity which he took with both hands. We liked the way he played at both Bedford and Newcastle and we saw the good parts in his game.

“He has really impressed us in the time he has been here. He’s a good guy amongst the squad; he’s very competitive; he’s a tough cookie and he is always working very hard to improve his game.

“In a similar way, Carl has also shown you can make the transition up from the Championship to the Premiership. He joined us from Pirates and because of one or two injuries, he got his opportunity to show what he could do.

“In the time he has been with us, he has proved to us that he is a very good tight-head, yet he feels his stronger position is that of loosehead.

“Personally, I am very pleased for both these guys because they were handed opportunities, which they have duly taken, and they’ve been good guys to have around the club. From our perspective it was relatively easy to offer them deals to stay.”

As well as keeping hold of both Rimmer and Chudley, Baxter has also spoken of his joy at keeping hold of Welshman Dollman, who has now amassed 85 appearances in total for the club.

Baxter added: “I don’t mind saying Dollars was the first player I brought to the club as head coach and it was somewhat strange how I came across him. When I took over, there were a pile of DVDs left on the desk by Pete [Drewett] and Paul [Larkin] so I had a look through them because I felt we needed a utility back.

“It was then that I came across Dollars and he fitted the bill perfectly. From there we had a meeting, a quick medical and we got the deal done within a week. Since then he has been outstanding for us and has been involved in virtually every match-day 23 from the moment he signed.

“Again he is a good guy to have amongst the squad; he’s very popular and he is someone who I see as getting better and better all the time. I know a lot of players don’t like getting called utility, but Phil is utility in a good sense of the word.

“Not only has he had some great games at full-back and centre, but he’s done a job on the wing, a bit of time at fly-half, we’ve even played him at scrum-half, so he’s done the lot really. Again he’s a key signing for us and gives us that flexibility in the right way as we know we can put him in a variety of different positions and we know he will deliver a top class performance.”

With all three players on board, Baxter believes the Chiefs can continue to move forward in much the same vein as recent seasons.

He continued: “The reality is that because we have a good working group here, we don’t have to make drastic changes year on year. Of course you have to have a small percentage of your squad changing over as that is the easiest way to keep developing.

“However, you don’t want a huge amount of players leaving at the same time. The balance between freshening things up and keeping your core group is key and what we like to think is that we do that pretty well here in terms of our on-going process.

“I think what a lot of coaches often say is that players who come in will have to buy into the club culture – and that is true in some sense – but what you really want is for those guys who do come in to not only buy into that culture, but also add their own piece to the mix as you look to go forward.”