Home-grown Exeter seek to topple the big spenders

The Chiefs’ vital game against Montpellier is a battle of contrasts, writes Daniel Schofield

This is the tale of two cities and two universities. Exeter and Montpellier meet today at Sandy Park as league leaders of the Aviva Premiership and Top 14 respectively in a win-or-bust encounter in Pool Three of the European Champions Cup.

Aside from their league position, the clubs have next to nothing in common. Montpellier have displaced Toulon as Europe’s biggest spenders, last year recruiting Aaron Cruden, Louis Picamoles and Ruan Pienaar. More superstars will arrive this summer.

Exeter spend up to the salary cap but their recruitment policy could not be more different. They target grafters rather than galacticos. Personality matters just as much, if not more, than potential. The RFU Greene King Championship rather than the Rugby Championship is their preferred market.

“Could we go down that [Montpellier] path?” Tony Rowe, the Exeter chairman said. “Possibly. Do we want to go down that path? Certainly not.”

The greatest contrast can be found in their approach to youth development. Last September, in an act of jaw-dropping cynicism, Montpellier announced a “scholarship” programme with Grey College, which is based a mere 7,800 miles away in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Badawi Legacy Scholarship Programme will fund a full-time French teacher and provide 50 scholarships. By an amazing coincidence, of all the institutions this act of benevolence could fall upon, Grey College just happens to rank as one of the great producers of South Africa internationals.

Montpellier’s team contains just three Frenchmen and one academy product, Picamoles – who returned in 2017 after eight years away – along with six South Africans and three Georgians. Exeter, meanwhile, field 10 English players, six of whom came through their academy. The success of the Chiefs academy is well established. Across Devon and Cornwall, there are 600 boys affiliated to their programmes. Last year, Jack Maunder and Sam Simmonds became the latest products to make their England debuts.

They supplement this pipeline by linking with the University of Exeter. It is a relationship that goes back to the days when Rob Baxter first cut his coaching teeth as director of rugby at the university more than 10 years ago. Keith Fleming, his successor, who is also the Chiefs’ match-day coordinator, says the university provides an important route for late developers.

“Boys don’t stop growing until 23 so to make a two-second analysis of their potential as a 14-year-old is a mistake,” Fleming said. “Their time with us can really bear fruit, especially with the tight-five forwards. They are with us for three years and they are a project from day one.

“We give them the best chance to become a professional rugby player but the most important thing is that they are getting their education,” he added. “Then they have got the best of both words. Whatever happens, rugby will come to an end, hopefully after a long and distinguished career but it can just as easily happen tomorrow.”

Second-row Sam Skinner, who has been among Exeter’s standout players this season, came via this

way, graduating with a first in business and economics.

“It is no coincidence to see the boys that are high academic achievers tend to be high achievers in sport because they apply the same discipline to their sport as they do to their studies,” Fleming said.

The relationship is reciprocal. Baxter and his coaching staff frequently attend the first XV’S home games, while Skinner, Phil Dollman and the now retired Haydn Thomas all coach at the university. In fact, with encouragement from Baxter, more than 20 players are involved in coaching at local sides.

“It makes them more appreciative of everything,” Baxter said. “Anything where the players are out away from here but actively involved in rugby is bound to be good for their development, bound to be good for them socially and that’s what keeps us linked to the community.”

England wing Jack Nowell misses out with an ankle injury today, while Slade and flanker Don Armand return for the Chiefs, for whom only victory is good enough against a monstrous Montpellier team.

“If you fight every moment, then you give yourself a chance,” Baxter maintained. “If at any stage you draw breath, then they can destroy you. We have to guard against drawing breath. A lot of it is going to be about building pressure and surviving pressure.”