{"id":434573,"date":"2026-02-19T17:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/434573\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T17:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:44:08","slug":"rob-baxter-makes-telling-selection-admission-over-england-pair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/434573\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Baxter makes telling selection admission over England pair"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exeter Chiefs<\/a> boss Rob Baxter admits that he will resist the temptation to use Henry Slade<\/a> and Greg Fisilau<\/a> in their must-win PREM Rugby Cup clash with Bath<\/a> at Sandy Park on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Baxter says the Chiefs<\/a> will find out this evening whether the pair will be retained by England<\/a> as reserves for their Six Nations<\/a> clash with Ireland<\/a> this weekend, after being left out of the initial matchday squad.<\/p>\n

But despite resources in the back five of the scrum stretched almost to breaking point, Baxter won\u2019t use Fisilau, who would give him an option at No.8 and blindside flanker, unless it\u2019s in an emergency.<\/p>\n

Neither player has been used by Steve Borthwick<\/a> in his Six Nations campaign so far, which raises the possibility of them going almost two months without playing.<\/p>\n

They both appeared against Bristol<\/a> Bears on January 24, and the next time the Chiefs are in PREM action is when Sale Sharks<\/a> travel to Devon on March 21 if they aren\u2019t involved in either the cup semi-finals or final.<\/p>\n

Baxter said, \u201cWe won\u2019t get told whether they\u2019re travelling reserves until later today. So, if they\u2019re returned to us, they are selectable. But our intention at this stage wouldn\u2019t be to use them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have every back five player of the scrum we have involved in the matchday 23. So Greg does give us a bit of a lifeline if anything happens today at training or tomorrow in the team run. But our intention is not to select them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baxter will, however, consider them for the semi-finals in a fortnight if the Chiefs secure qualification by beating Bath, who slaughtered them 48-14 at Sandy Park in last season\u2019s final.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what we may do is if they\u2019re not involved now for a period, and if we do qualify for the semi-final, we may look at potentially using them then, if they even, you know, we\u2019re waiting to see if they become available late.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it is going to get an extended period of time of them not playing, and they have both expressed that they\u2019re happy to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019ll just probably just play that week by week, depending on if they become available later in the week and how we feel comfortable selecting them, with them only coming in and doing a team run,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exeter Chiefs boss Rob Baxter admits that he will resist the temptation to use Henry Slade and Greg…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-434573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}