Rob Baxter backing Henry Slade to adapt to changes
Exeter are confident that the decision to change their defensive system will not jeopardise Henry Slade’s place in the England side.
Slade has led England’s defence since the start of the year as it was almost identical to Exeter’s system.
But both have changed their defence coaches since the summer.
At national level Joe El-Abd has replaced Felix Jones, who handed in his notice after the summer tour to New Zealand, while the Chiefs recently parted company with Omar Mouneimne.
Same Role
“The role Henry will play in our system will not change,” said Rob Baxter, Exeter’s director of rugby.
“We are not looking at the rush defence but other elements I felt left us vulnerable and which sometimes hampered Henry. The role he has with us and with England will not change.”
Baxter made the decision to tweak his management team after the Chiefs lost their first six Premiership matches of the campaign to leave them one off the bottom. Haydn Thomas, far right, has taken over from Mouneimne, right.
“Omar has a system he believes in and it has some real strengths,” said Baxter. “We have caused teams problems with it but we have had to do it very well.
“Omar is driven on what he wants to see from a team defensively and I do not want to make it sound like he made a huge error.
“I had a few conversations with him over a period of time and we came to the conclusion it was the right time to part company. It was pretty amicable.
“My job is to look at that in as much detail as possible and make an assessment. Were we maximising our training time? Getting the best out of the players? Working to their individual strengths? Are our training sessions aligned?
“Are we asking them to do radically different things in one part of the game to a different part? I concluded we were not aligned enough in how we trained and some of the things we were asking the players to do did not make sense collectively.”
Coaches Challenge
Baxter said he had challenged his coaching team to make the Chiefs trend-setters again in the Premiership.
“We have to learn from every source we can, which is why it is good that Haydn is part of the England A coaching team,” said Baxter.
“People may ask if we are getting stuck in our ways as a coaching team given that we have been together for a long time.
“Are we the best practise team in the Premiership? I said to the coaches that I did not know how many other sides would be looking at what we were doing whereas not that long ago everyone was.
“We brought in some things based on statistical analysis, such as tap penalties rather than going for the corner and five-metre attack principles, but while others have moved on, are we?
“Haydn has a good way of putting things over to the players and he has a slightly different way of looking at defence than Omar.
It aligns more to what we are looking for in every element of our game and I am confident that will show very quickly.
“It will still be line speed defence on the whole but with a few extra points, keeping people on their feet, more movement and width and more turnovers.
“It will not be perfect overnight and the ultimate test will be when the Premiership resumes.”
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