That loss precipitated massive change at Exeter.<\/p>\n
Hepher – Baxter’s right-hand man since he first took control at Sandy Park in 2009 – and forwards specialist Hunter, who had taken over as head coach after Hepher’s demotion, were suspended and never returned to the first-team fold. <\/p>\n
In came experienced backs coach Dave Walder, while Ross McMillan was put in charge of the forwards and long-serving skills coach Ricky Pellow eventually left the club late last year.<\/p>\n
And for a club that often signed just a handful of players each summer during their glory days, there was wholesale change in the squad – Australia stars Len Ikitau and Tom Hooper were part of a big recruitment drive that also saw the front row and scrum-half positions bolstered. <\/p>\n
It appears to have worked.<\/p>\n
While ‘Exeter 2.0’ – the side that came about after their stars that took them to a Prem and European double left the club three to four years ago – failed to trouble the play-off places, this new-look side could return them to former glories.<\/p>\n
They lie fourth in the table, are into the semi-finals of the European Challenge Cup, and, but for two yellow cards in the final quarter, could have beaten league leaders Northampton last week. <\/p>\n
“If you compare it to this stage last year it feels a lot better,” added Baxter.<\/p>\n
“But in other seasons we’d be in first or second in the Premiership and in semi-finals and quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
“It feels better than last season, but we’ve still got a decent bit of work to do to come out at the end of the season and say ‘we managed to hold a consistent level of form together across that final quarter of the season’.”<\/p>\n
However Exeter’s return to Kingsholm ends up, it will not be as seminal a moment in the club’s recent history as that drubbing in April 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That loss precipitated massive change at Exeter. Hepher – Baxter’s right-hand man since he first took control at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-551271","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\/551271","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=551271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}