Baxter and his staff sign new Exeter deals

Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter and his coaching team have all signed new contracts tying them to the club until 2018.
Baxter, 43, took over the running of the Chiefs in 2009 following the departure of former Director of Rugby, Pete Drewett and has been the lead figure in Exeter‘s recent rise out of the Championship and into the Aviva Premiership and Europe.
Not only has he guided the club to two top six finishes in English rugby’s top tier but he has steered the Devon outfit into the Heineken Cup on two different occasions and won the LV= Cup last term.
Ali Hepher, Rob Hunter, Ricky Pellow and Mark Twiggs have all signed new deals too.
He said: “We talk a lot when we talk about recruiting players and retaining players that we don’t like a big turnover of players and we like to give a group time to mature together and develop together and in a lot of ways it’s very similar with coaches.
“We’d all like to think we’re better coaches this year than last year and we were better last year than the year before. That helps us. We’re a relatively young coaching group, we’re not guys lose to retirement by any means, and we’re happy to keep learning and keep developing. That works well for us as a club.
“From my perspective, I’m delighted to be signing a new deal but I’m even happier it’s the same group of coaches who are signing to stay here because ultimately they’re the guys who probably don’t get as much credit as they deserve for the success the team has because I’m the guy in the spotlight. They all work incredibly hard.”