WE DON’T FEAR THE BIG BOYS!
Henry Slade backs Exeter to end final pain and conquer Europe
EXETER CHIEFS are not messing about any more. They have enjoyed some big days out, happy to drink post-match ciders on the way home content they had even made it that far.
But they are now done with the heartbreak, the near-misses and silver medals. It is time to shake up the old order.
Only teams with overgrown wallets or long- established dynasties have lifted the European Cup in recent seasons.
Perhaps only Brive in 1997, Ulster in 1999 and Northampton in 2000 have broken up the run of either rich or establishment winners. So for Henry Slade and his Chiefs, Europe is due a new conqueror.
‘There are teams left who are notoriously very good in Europe and have been big names, but we feel like it’s irrelevant,’ he tells Sportsmail.
‘We’re confident and will back ourselves against anyone. We have massive respect for the teams left but history doesn’t mean anything in the present does it? It’s all about who does it this year and that’s hopefully going to be us.’
Despite their now permanent residency at the top of English rugby’s domestic tables, Sunday will be only Exeter’s second European quarter-final.
Four years ago they led 24-11 against Wasps before losing by a point with the last kick of the game. ‘It was tough to take,’ Slade says. ‘At that stage of the club’s development we were happy to be in a quarter-final. It’s different this time.’
Since then they have won the league once and been beaten by Saracens in Premiership finals three times — each one increasingly hard to take, especially knowing now that their rivals cheated their way to those titles. ‘It’s gutting,’ says Slade.
‘Every one gets harder. The last one left me absolutely distraught. We never want to feel that again. It is still burning in the bellies of the boys and hopefully it spurs us on.’
It was 10 months ago this week that Exeter kicked off their European campaign with a marquee victory, a 31-12 win at La Rochelle. They went unbeaten through the pool stage to set up a quarter-final against Northampton, originally due to be played in April but now set for Sunday.
With the form Saints are in — six defeats in seven since the restart — most expect Exeter to walk into the semi-finals. But Slade is focused.
‘We know we’ve got a tough Saints side coming down who are hurting. That can make a team very dangerous,’ he says.
While desperate for success, Slade, 27, is a lot freer these days. Not in the sense that he has more time — that notion turned to dust when his partner Megan gave birth to daughter Olive last month — but now his anxieties have eased.
It is tricky to imagine that a player who looks so elegant and poised on the field has spent most of his career so uptight and in such a wrestle with his mental health that he felt he could not perform properly.
Thankfully he has broken a cycle of OCD and we might at last see the most at- ease version of the Exeter and England centre yet.
‘I felt like if I didn’t do things right — tying shoelaces, switching off lights — I’d get injured or bad things would happen to my family or friends,’ Slade explains. ‘It started when I was a little kid, eight or nine, and I broke it just a couple of years ago.
‘I ended up thinking, “The way I turn the light off isn’t going to affect how I play or how someone’s health is going to be”. I immediately felt a massive weight off my shoulders.’ Olive’s arrival has helped too. ‘I don’t know if I like waking up at night to change a dirty nappy but I’m enjoying most of it!’ Slade laughs. ‘ Seeing her being born was an unbelievable experience. It’s the best feeling ever — I couldn’t speak for three hours.
‘I’ve always tried to find ways of relaxing outside of rugby. You need a chance to relax and take your mind off things.
‘I used to play Call of Duty, now I’m changing nappies!’
They are tighter than most down in Devon. Moulded in the image of boss Rob Baxter, the Chiefs are expected to out-work everyone — the non- negotiable standard set — but also enjoy themselves.
The squad is full of dodgy haircuts, sprawling tattoos, sons of fishermen, pigeonracers, butchers, hunters and eccentrics. ‘We’re a bunch of misfits really,’ says Slade, who grew up in the Devon village of Yealmpton.
‘ We transitioned from the old-fashioned rugby club stuff of beers on the way back,’ adds Slade before interrupting himself. ‘Well, we still have beers on the way back from a tough game, but it’s different.
‘We make time and days for beers together. That’s when you learn most about each other, after a couple of pints. I’m from here, but the South West is such a nice place to live.
‘The beaches and moors are nearby and Exeter is not the biggest place so the boys live near each other.’
Now Slade and Exeter are determined to finish the job and join Europe’s big guns.
NORTHAMPTON have solved their prop injury crisis by taking Gloucester’s Alex Seville on loan for the Exeter game. Organisers EPCR allowed this to avoid the need for uncontested scrums.
Saints coach Chris Boyd says Chiefs should still not attack Emmanuel Iyogun, 19, but Exeter boss Baxter replied: ‘What does that mean? That Northampton will go to uncontested scrums but not if we don’t push? It is a quarter-final, not a pre-season friendly.’