Nick Cain: Baxter can improve England’s set-piece

Stuart Lancaster has made a smart move in asking Rob Baxter to join the England set-up as forwards coach for the tour to Argentina this summer because he brings a skill that England require. Namely, having learned his trade not only as a coach but also as a player in a Championship full of big, lumpy packs, he understands the importance of not compromising on the basic components needed to build a good forward unit.
Those forward components were not assembled to the highest specification in the England side that finished second in the Six Nations championship for the second season in succession under head coach Lancaster, with their set-piece shortcomings laid bare in Cardiff.
It is the second time that a pack tutored by the incumbent England and Lions forwards coach, Graham Rowntree, has come a cropper – the first instance being the opening Test of the 2009 Lions tour in Durban when the tourists were overwhelmed in the scrum, allowing South Africa to build a winning half-time lead.
Rowntree has had notable successes, too, and is a likeable and popular character. However, there is no disputing that, having been fast-tracked by the RFU, the former Leicester and 54-cap England prop has not done the coaching hard yards that Baxter has.
Rowntree finished playing for Leicester only six seasons ago, and since then he has all but by-passed coaching in the Premiership, or the Championship. He spent a single season as an assistant coach at the Tigers before another short stint as an English National Academy coach saw him appointed as England scrum coach, and then, in 2008, as forwards coach by Martin Johnson.
Baxter, a lock who retired from a 10-year stint as Exeter captain only a year before Rowntree hung up his boots, also moved straight into coaching, starting out with the Chiefs in 2006. There, with the hugely experienced former Tigers and England prop, Robin Cowling, as team manager, Baxter cut his teeth first as forwards coach, and then from 2009 as head coach.
Baxter’s track-record with Exeter since then, including winning promotion to the Premiership in the 2010-11 season, shows a natural aptitude for the job.
His shrewdness was first revealed in their 2010 two-leg Championship promotion play-off against Bristol, the odds-on favourites. During Exeter’s 9-6 win in the first leg at Sandy Lane, Baxter positioned six cameras in the stands so that the Chiefs could do a tactical dissection of Bristol before the second leg five days later. They identified a glaring Bristol weaknesses in defending rolling mauls, and Exeter rumbled their way to a 29-10 victory at the Memorial Ground to secure promotion.
Baxter got his Premiership building blocks in place straight away by ensuring that Exeter’s forwards could scrummage as well as the best packs in the top tier. He equipped them also with a highly efficient lineout, ensuring that their driving maul remained as potent a weapon in the top league as it was in the Championship.
Those set-piece foundations, combined with astute selection, good conditioning, and smart buys in the transfer market, underpinned the Chiefs not only surviving in the Premiership, but thriving. They went from eighth to fifth in their first two seasons in the top flight, securing them a place in the Heineken Cup for the first time.
Baxter’s reward was to be named last season’s Premiership ‘Coach of the Year’, and although the Chiefs did not get out of the Heineken Cup pool stages, they distinguished themselves with two impressive displays against Leinster, the back-to-back European champions. Their progress was also evident when they beat English champions Harlequins at the Stoop recently.
The 42-year-old Chiefs coach said of the England honour: “I see it as a fantastic opportunity for me to do what we keep saying to the players here at the club, which is to keep learning, keep doing better, and experience new things.
“This is a great chance for me to experience something different, learn from other coaches such as Stuart (Lancaster), Mike Catt, and Paul Gustard, and work with some different players.”
Judging from Baxter’s CV the benefit will be mutual, especially as Argentina is never an easy place to tour.
However, the playing field will be level. Although England will be without their Lions contingent for the two Test series, Argentina will not include the mainly French-based stars who will play for the Pumas in the Southern Hemisphere Rugby Championship in August.
Even so, with home-based Argentine players now earning wages as semi-pros, and also getting a competitive edge by competing as the Pampas XV in the Vodacom Cup in South Africa, Argentina will be well primed for the two Tests to be played in Salta and Buenos Aires in early June.
England have plenty of work to do in preparation. They must develop a punishing scrum, including a tighthead to push Dan Cole.
They have to unearth a big, bruising lock to bring ballast to the second row, and find a foraging, linking No.7. Last but not least they have to learn how to assemble a fearsome driving maul.
Step forward Henry Thomas, Dave Attwood, Will Fraser, and the Chief who can grab the wild bull of the pampas by the horns, Rob Baxter.