Baxter Again!

[Neils]

Exeter Chiefs boss Rob Baxter predicts more shock results in Premiership

Last updated on

1 minute ago1 minute ago.From the section Rugby Union
Exeter Chiefs boss Rob Baxter believes the Premiership is more 'competitive' without relegation.
Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Steve Baxter says struggling clubs play with more "ambition and desire" now the threat of relegation is removed

Exeter Chiefs director of Rugby Rob Baxter believes the Premiership is much more "competitive" without the threat of relegation.

Relegation to the Championship will not return until 2024-25 at the earliest as the top flight bids to rebalance after the demise of Worcester and Wasps.

And in the last round of games, the top three Saracens, Sale and Harlequins all lost to sides at the bottom.

"Now you're never in a scenario where a team aren't coming after you," he said.

"Some teams in the relegation zone would [previously] rest players when they came up against a side they didn't think they would beat, because the next game was against a relegation rival.

"That doesn't happen any more because there's no need to."

The Premiership was left with 11 clubs for the remainder of this season following the financial collapse of Worcester and Wasps, which saw both Midlands-based clubs suspended and then relegated from the top division.

And Baxter believes without the threat of further relegation from the Premiership, struggling teams have been given a boost of confidence on the pitch.

"Competitive results are going to happen more and more often," he said.

"A perfect example is when we've been to Newcastle when they've been in the bottom two.

"It's very hard to play with the ambition and desire that they play with now because there's so much hanging on the result."

While leaders Saracens, second-placed Sale and Harlequins in third lost to London Irish, Newcastle and Bristol respectively, over Christmas, Baxter's sixth-placed Chiefs narrowly avoided coming unstuck against Bath on Christmas Eve, eventually grinding out a 20-15 win.

That result left Bath bottom of the table, but with every side in the league having won at least three of their 10 games this season.

"We've won some pretty tight games against teams that have been in the bottom two because the game means so much that as it gets to that pressure 10 minutes at the end, they start to make more mistakes than you do," added Baxter.

"That's actually changed a bit and what you're seeing is that teams at the bottom of the league can get on with it.

"They're not looking over their shoulder [anymore], they're looking upwards all the time."

Exeter are back in action against top-of-the-table Saracens on New Year's Eve.

[Shugs]

Absolute tosh isn’t it. Firstly, the league isn’t competitive - Sarries will win it. Secondly - once you squash it down to 11 teams it’s really not unusual for third bottom to beat third top as there are only five places between them! Baxter sounds to me like a worried man. The reason he doesn’t want relegation seems obvious.

[Neils]

Rob Baxter: Rugby’s baffling law changes will cause more head injuries
Rugby union’s world governing body will bring in new variations on current laws on January 1

By
Ben Coles,
 RUGBY REPORTER
28 December 2022 • 1:36pm
Rob Baxter, the Exeter Chiefs director of rugby, has admitted that he is “baffled” by rugby’s ever-changing law variations and believes that the drive to speed up the game will lead to more head injuries and stoppages.

World Rugby will introduce a number of new variations from January 1, including countdown clocks for kickers on television screens and in stadium and empowering referees to give free-kicks for obvious time-wasting, especially at line-outs.

Addressing the changes occurring mid-season for teams in the northern hemisphere, Baxter explained that – outside of the necessary law changes introduced in recent years to reduce the number of head injuries – he would back a two-year moratorium for laws to remain in place before being properly assessed, rather than tinkering with the sport to such an extent that new law variations end up contradicting previous tweaks which were only introduced months beforehand.

“We are doing everything, we think, to attract supporters and make the game better. But we’re making it impossible to attract supporters because they don’t know what game they are going to watch. We have to decide on something and settle on it for longer than we do,” Baxter said, ahead of his side’s game with Saracens on New Year’s Eve.
 almost become part of rugby now that things have to change during the season. To me it just seems madness, but it seems to be the thing that has to happen now. And we have to get out of it.

“It still baffles me that we’re now trying to introduce changes which seem completely contradictory to the focus on player welfare. The speeding up of the game; great, I want it to be quicker. But what slowed it down was having to stop for every single injury because no one was prepared to take a chance with injured players. Now we’re talking about carrying on if players are injured on the ground. Who’s going to take responsibility now if they become seriously injured.

“We’ve created something, and now we’re trying to contradict ourselves to go back on it. You have to make the right decision at the start, and we just need to settle a little bit and take more time to decide on how we're going to do things. If someone said what would be the one thing you would want to change about rugby, it would be to stop changing it. I keep saying that. I would never suggest making a change to the game without spending a lot of time working on what the repercussions would be.

“It still seems madness to me that the big thing that seems to get shouted about are scrums and mauls. Head injuries don't happen in scrums and mauls, yet that is supposed to be the biggest thing we’re fighting against in the game at the moment. Yet we’re trying to create a game with more tackles and head injuries happen in tackles. I’m baffled, but there we go. And what do head injuries cause – the biggest stoppages in games, with the review process. But we want to create more of those.”
It's

[Neils]

And again!

[Rossm]

Rent-a-mouth.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

The more I hear Rob Baxter, the more I like Steve Diamond.

[westwaleswasp]

It's like a rugby Tourettes with a side dish of self-interest.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

I'm not sure I want to watch games where one side has nothing to play for and is throwing the ball around as if they're having an end of training session muck about.

[Nigel Med]

This won’t happen but it is a delightful thought: Premiership rugby decide to proceed with the plan to reduce the Premiership to 10 teams so have to decide who to jettison into the Championship, they obviously ask Saracens, they-who-can-do-no-wrong, the perennial property developers and rugby cheats as they are the golden boys of English rugby and their opinion is vitally important. Remembering how vocal Baxter and Rowe were in their criticism, the EAs suggest the simple solution of relegating whoever was last to acquire Premiership shares- a “last in, first out” scenario. I believe the last club to acquire shares was Exeter.

Wouldn’t you just love to see Baxter’s reaction?

[Shugs]

His reaction would be to vocalise the fact that a 14 team league is best. Lo and behold within 4 weeks it would be confirmed as PRL/RFU policy.

[Skippy]

With the gob on Baxter, it seems like the press have found a ready made successor to Jones.

[13thWarrior]

Its an often remarked on phenomenon that near-bottom teams in leagues without relegation play more enterprising stuff than near-bottom teams in leagues with relegation, and its probably largely for the reasons Baxter says, there is less pressure and reduced need to target particular game with your fit players. We saw this when we made the final a few years ago - lose the pressure and the attacking rugby flows.

Re the laws, there is nothing controversial in what he is saying: that we should take time changing laws and then spend some time evaluating the changes before making more.

Both of these articles are barely news worthy but they aren't egregiously wrong.

Some of you need to read what the person is actually saying and not just use your emotional reaction to that person to judge their words

[andermt]

Time and again I hear statements of how competitive the league is, look at the last rounds results:

Sale 40 - Tigers 5
Bath 24 - Falcons 16
Glaws 8 - Irish 6
Sarries 35 - Exeter 3
Saints 46 - Quins 17

I didn't see any of the matches so they may be more competitive than the scores show but other than Glaws vs Irish none of the games resulted in a losing bonus point. Surely if its as competitive as the claim there should be losing bonus points every match.
3 of the matches finished with a winning margin of over 4 tries and conversions!

[jamestaylor002]

The Premiership, as a whole, is not competitive in my opinion.

The past few seasons, it's been a case of seeing who will play Saracens or Exeter in the final. The 2022 final was the first final Exeter didn't make since 2015. Saracens have missed 3 in that time with 2 of those due to their relegation and the other being due to losing against Exeter in the SF - so you couldn't have had both Saracens and Exeter in that final anyway.

In the last 10 seasons, there have been 4 winners (Leicester x 2, Quins x 2, Exeter x 2, Saracens x 4)

If you measure Premiership competitiveness based on every club having a strong chance of winning the trophy at the end of it, then the competition falls well short.

There always appears to be strong competition in the lower half of the table, as it always appears that clubs are separated by only a point or two. But it's difficult to excite people/neutrals when there's not much at stake (yes, there is the benefit of getting into the Champions Cup places but that will only be of interest to club's supporters).

[coddy]

I agree, considering there is a (lowered) salary cap the uncompetitiveness of the Premiership is quite disturbing.

The clubs need the fight to survive pressure to play their most competitive games of Rugby.

BT Sport and other broadcasters will definitely want relegation and promotion.