INSIDE STORY: Exeter Chiefs rewarded for their patient approach

Martyn Thomas 05:03 02/03/2015
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  • Exeter are one of Rugby Union's great success stories

    Following confirmation that scrapping relegation is back on the Premiership Rugby agenda, it is only natural for thoughts to drift to a club that embodies the appeal of the English pyramid system.

    As professionalism dawned on rugby union in 1995, Exeter Rugby Club – still some years from adding their Chiefs nickname – were preparing for life in National Division Four, where they would play in front of a few hundred people at a ramshackle ground.

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    Yet back-to-back promotions catapulted them into the second tier, and thanks to some considered planning off the pitch they were able to win promotion to the Premiership in 2010.

    Since ascending to the top flight, the Chiefs have more than held their own. A first major trophy, the LV= Cup, was won last season while the club also qualified twice for the European Cup. On Saturday, 12,500 people descended on their state-of-the-art home, Sandy Park, as Bath visited for a game that had been sold out six weeks previously.

    Twenty-four hours later, and as if to accentuate the club’s growth, 21-year-old Jack Nowell, a product of the Chiefs’ academy, patrolled England’s left wing in their Six Nations clash with Ireland in Dublin.

    Head coach Rob Baxter has been there for every step of Exeter’s incredible journey. His father, John, is a former chairman, and both he and his brother Rich captained the club. Not normally a man known for bursts of sentimentality, he does admit to pinching himself when contemplating exactly how far the club has come.

    “When I was first playing junior rugby at Exeter, the league structure probably wasn’t as big a competition as the Devon Cup in some ways,” Baxter says.

    “And maybe when you look back that far and you go back to some of the games we played in and some of the league structures we were involved with then, you sometimes go ‘yeah, this is amazing’.

    “To have been part of it and seen fourth division rugby and Devon Cup rugby, and to now have experienced the Heineken Cup and LV= Cup final, to be there in a sellout crowd away at Leicester and suchlike, that’s fantastic.

    “When you do sit back and just map it out week by week, day by day, you can kind of work out why it’s happened. And that’s quite satisfying.”

    Indeed, Exeter’s changing fortunes can be traced back to 1993, Ruling Chiefs rewarded for their patience when the current chairman and chief executive, Tony Rowe, first got involved as a sponsor. Rowe, who had built up his company South West Communications Group during the technology boom, found a club that, in his own words, “literally went from one financial crisis to the next”.

    “I just helped them commercialise the thing a little bit,” Rowe says. “Get some local sponsors in and get it so they could entertain people on Saturdays properly.”

    He would become more hands-on in 1998, though, as he turned the club into a Limited Company, and having formed a board, appointed a new director of rugby in Ian Bremner. A future UAE Rugby chief executive, he was tasked with making Exeter a stable Championship side and did just that, with the side never finishing the season outside of the top five with the Irishman at the helm.

    Promotion was being discussed, leading the club to look at the possibility of renovating their County Ground. It was deemed impossible, however, and instead the land was sold for £11.6 million (Dh65.8m) and a new site was found on Sandy Park Farm.

    The new ground was built in a novel way; as a banquet and conferencing centre first and a rugby stadium second. This unique business model effectively means that an arena that will play host to three World Cup matches this autumn pays for itself.

    “Most stadiums are built as a rugby stadium and they adapt it for banquet and conferencing. We approached it from a different angle,” Rowe explains.

    The cathedral of many big Aviva Premiership Days, Sandy Park will host Rugby World Cup fixtures later this year.

    “We have to work hard to make a profit but I know some clubs in the Premiership really work hard and struggle because they haven’t got the facilities we’ve got. It’s key to our success going forward that we have a successful company off the pitch.”

    Initially a 5,500-capacity stadium, Exeter’s first game at the new ground, at the start of the 2006/07 season, was a sell-out, and in their first campaign their crowds rose from an average of around 1,500 to more than 4,000.

    However, with a new director of rugby Pete Drewett overseeing matters, promotion still evaded the Chiefs as they twice finished second. In 2007/08 their path had been blocked by a Northampton Saints side boasting the likes of Chris Ashton, Dylan Hartley, Stephen Myler, Carlos Spencer and Bruce Reihana, while a year later it was a Leeds side with a much larger budget.

    All the while, though, Exeter were becoming more professional off the pitch, and there was never any pressure put on securing top-flight rugby.

    “It was very exciting to face these players,” Kevin Barrett, who played for the club in both the Championship and Premiership, says. “But we were, year on year, putting in place the building blocks to be ready when the time came.”

    Their moment would arrive in 2010, in Baxter’s first season in charge, as the club took advantage of the new play-off system to edge out Bristol 38-16 on aggregate.

    Thanks to some considerable planning off the pitch, Exeter secured promotion in 2010.

    “I can’t remember ever worrying about not getting into the Premiership because I don’t think we ever looked at it like that,” Baxter says. “It was always an exciting goal, it was always something I felt we could go for and there wasn’t massive pressure if it didn’t happen, and I think that’s why it felt so nice.

    “For me, winning the Championship was fantastic and, particularly the second leg away at Bristol, I don’t think even the best Premiership games have quite lived up to the emotion of that night.”

    Barrett, who had departed for Saracens before promotion was secured, adds: “As soon as he (Baxter) came in he made a difference. His passion was infectious and he invited us all to be part of the journey and the transition that the club was making by showing us what we could do on the field.”

    The Chiefs have made the transition to the top flight look easy. Baxter and his coaching staff’s studied recruitment policy has brought in the likes of Dean Mumm and Thomas Waldrom, who have bought into the ethos of the club and improved the team. British and Irish Lion Geoff Parling has already been signed for next season as the club continue to show ambition, while the academy has furnished the first team not only with Nowell, but also Henry Slade, Sam Hill and Dave Ewers.

    Sandy Park has grown too, with £10m (Dh56.7m) spent on improvements ahead of the World Cup. There are plans to one day turn it into a 20,000-seat arena, although typically the club is in no rush. Expansion is driven by what happens off the field, not on it.

    “The important thing to remember with all of this is that it’s been a long-term process,” Baxter says. “Historically the biggest decision, the one that was the most important, was we didn’t rush into professional rugby. When I look back I think what a defining moment.”

    That said, no-one at the Chiefs appears to spend much time looking backwards, not when they still have plenty left to achieve.

    “It’s been a lot of work in the Premiership because you have to step up a few gears, and it’s been good, it’s been fantastic,” Rowe adds. “Our ambition is to get to the top of the tree and we will do. I don’t know when but we will do.”

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