Chiefs go back to basics in bid to win back crown
Slade admits complacency may have crept in after Quins steal their Premiership title
HENRY Slade insists Exeter have gone back to basics after admitting complacency contributed to their downfall in last season’s Gallagher Premiership final.
The Chiefs arrived at Twickenham in June as strong favourites to lift their third league crown only for Harlequins to defy expectations for the last time in an exhilarating season by emerging 40-38 winners.
Exeter have appeared in the last six domestic finals but 2017 and 2020 are their only successes and Slade revealed that the most recent setback has prompted a rethink.
“We’ve experienced enough finals to know how to come back from it and to come back stronger,” Slade said.
“It was frustrating and it still is, but we had a good summer and have used the feeling we had. We had a reset down at Chiefs and are looking forward to going one better this year.
“We have just gone back to what we pride ourselves on - expecting high standards of each other, working hard and getting back to the basics that you have to nail down.
“Maybe there was a sense of complacency. We have reached the last however many finals, but every time you get there, it’s against a bloody good team.”
To help them prepare for a season when the title will be even more ferociously contested due to Saracens’ return to the top flight, Exeter have enlisted the help of the Royal Marines.
Rob Baxter’s 2020 double winners have spent time at The Commando Training Centre in Lympstone this summer to take them out of their comfort zone.
“We have had some swimming sessions at the marine base. We’ve been passing around rifles and trying to keep them above water, things like that,” Slade said.
“It’s a proper deep pool - four or five metres deep - and they give us rifles and we have to tread water and keep the rifles above water.
“Then they will chuck one to the bottom and you have to go and pick that up and carry on - it is pretty tough.
“You have to keep it above water for a few minutes. It’s not ideal, especially when some people in the group aren’t good swimmers.
“Those boys in the marines are tough. We don’t even do the things they do fully, so I can’t imagine how hard their training is.”
Meanwhile, director of rugby Rob Baxter has confirmed the majority of the Exeter players have had their Covid-19 vaccinations as Premiership Rugby heads into its third season since the beginning of the pandemic.
The nation is learning to live with
Covid but rugby is still trying, understandably, to keep it out.
That will be all the harder should players chose not to be vaccinated, which Slade indicated was his position earlier this summer.
Discussing the matter Baxter said: “Nearly everyone has had it [the vaccine]. My view is the majority of our team have had it but it is not for me to tell you which individuals have not had it.
“The official line is we encourage them to be vaccinated, from PRL Premiership Rugby and the club’s perspective is we encourage them to get vaccinated but it is not for me to tell you whether they have or haven’t.”
“We are not going to talk about our individual player’s choices in a public forum.
“It is not for me to tell you their medical position on anything, whether it is vaccinations, any other medications or their mental health.”