{"id":151507,"date":"2025-09-18T06:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T06:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/151507\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T06:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T06:50:11","slug":"henry-slade-exeter-ready-to-put-terrible-season-behind-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/151507\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Slade: Exeter ready to put ‘terrible’ season behind them"},"content":{"rendered":"

After an off-field restructure began following a club-record 79-17 loss<\/a> at Gloucester in late April – the lowest point in their worst season in recent memory – Exeter ended the campaign with a win over Northampton before narrow losses to Harlequins and Sale.<\/p>\n

The rejig led to long-serving coaches Ali Hepher and Rob Hunter losing their jobs as Dave Walder came in as backs coach and director of rugby Rob Baxter took a more hands-on role with the side.<\/p>\n

“Dave’s come in and he’s been brilliant,” said Slade.<\/p>\n

“He’s come in with loads of new ideas and a different voice and different way of doing things. I think people have really warmed to that.<\/p>\n

“I’m excited to see the stuff that he’s bringing to life – we didn’t really get to see loads of it at the end of last year because he came in with two or three weeks to go and couldn’t change too much.<\/p>\n

“But he’s changed our whole calling structure, the whole way we’re playing has changed, so it’s exciting.”<\/p>\n

Last season, Exeter’s squad suffered twofold from of a lack of experience and injuries as key players such as England winger Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, veteran back Olly Woodburn and Wales lock Dafydd Jenkins missed large chunks of the campaign.<\/p>\n

It led to young players having to learn on the job, something Slade hopes can have a long-term benefit.<\/p>\n

“I feel like the younger lads now, because they’ve been chucked in the deep end a bit, have had a couple of years of learning and playing and I feel like they’re going to be in a much better place,” he added.<\/p>\n

“They know what it feels like to be at the bottom and you don’t want to be there. It’s a terrible place to be and we’re trying to talk to some of the lads about what it takes to get back to the top.<\/p>\n

“I know it sounds silly but it starts with the little things like little standards, making sure everyone’s on time for things, making sure you leave things in a good state.<\/p>\n

“I know they sound small, but you’ve got to start on these little tiny things to enable you to get the big parts.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After an off-field restructure began following a club-record 79-17 loss at Gloucester in late April – the lowest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-151507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}