Baxter reacts to Cup fixtures

Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter says the club will continue to utilise their squad to the full in the Premiership Rugby Cup. Picture: Getty Images

By Mark Stevens
16/7/18

Rob Baxter says Exeter Chiefs will continue to use the newly-named Premiership Rugby Cup as the ideal ‘stepping stone’ for players to work their way into top-flight contention.

Since their promotion into the Premiership back in 2010, the Chiefs have used the competition – which has been known as the LV= Cup and Anglo-Welsh Cup – as a vital component in helping to develop their playing squad across the board.

Whether it be young academy players getting their first real taste of senior action, through to established stars getting much needed game time under their belts, it’s a competition that has served the Chiefs well over the years.

Four successive final appearances, including two victories in that time, underlined the placed on the tournament by Baxter and his team of coaches, a number of whom are themselves also given their chance to shine in taking charge of the Devon club.

Reflecting on today’s fixtures announcement for the new 2018/19 season, Baxter made no secret of the fact that the Chiefs would adopt a similar stance for tournament when it gets underway with an away trip to Newcastle Falcons on Sunday, October 28 (3pm).

“To be successful in the Premiership and in Europe you need to have a strong squad,” said Baxter. “If you have a strong squad and a strong academy, those players will need games. In the past we have used this competition to make sure those players who haven’t played that much rugby get game time under their belts, whilst for some of those young academy players it’s a great opportunity for them to get some first team experience and play in front of some big crowds.

“As we always say to the guys here, every game is an important game of rugby because at the end of the day it’s a chance for you to put on a first team jersey for Exeter. Whatever game they play, we expect the guys to go out well. If you look at the formula we’ve adopted in this competition over the years, it obviously serves us well because we’ve got to a few finals and we’ve won the competition twice.”

Over the years numerous players have used the competition as the perfect launchpad to fire themselves into regular first-team contention and Baxter is keen for the trend to continue as the Chiefs tackle not only the Falcons, but rivals Bath, Harlequins and newly-promoted Bristol Bears in the pool stages.

“It’s an exciting set of fixtures,” added Baxter. “If an ideal world you wouldn’t choose to travel to Newcastle if you could avoid it, but to be fair to them they’ve had to come down here a few times in the last few years, so it starts to even the score up a bit on that front.

“As for the others, Bath and Bristol are two fantastic derbies that are not only good for travel, but they will also be great for the supporters as well. With Harlequins, again we’ve had some fantastic fixtures with them in the past and they’ve always tended to be strong both in this competition and the A League, so as I said it’s a quality set of fixtures for us to really attack.”