By The Telegraph (World News) | Created at 2024-10-29 18:11:43 | Updated at 2024-11-06 01:59:38
1 week ago
While several sides have had to cope with England call ups and missing key players Exeter have avoided that pitfall by having Henry Slade available for their match against Harlequins this afternoon.
The centre has been released from Steve Borthwick’s training camp and allowed to play at Sandy Park for what will be his first competitive appearance of the season after recovering from shoulder surgery. If he comes out of the clash unscathed he’ll be in line to face the All Blacks at Twickenham next Saturday.
And, it was no shock to hear Rob Baxter delighted with the availability of one of his key men.
“To be fair to England, they’ve been very good about it, Henry wants some game-time. They obviously want to see him in a game, we obviously want to see him in a game,” the Exeter director of rugby said.
“I think more than anything else, it’s when the player wants to play and he wants to get out there, that’s probably the key to pulling it all together.
“Between ourselves and England, we’ve come to as good an arrangement as possible. He’s spent some time with England, he’ll have a training day with us today and play at the weekend, so that’s good news for us.
“Obviously he’s a very important player, a player we’ve missed so far this season both on and off the field, really, in a lot of ways, so that’s good news.”
Such has been the Chiefs season they could do with Slade’s poise and class in the backline. They are without a win this season (the only side to fail to register a W), and only perennial basement club Newcastle sit between them and the foot of the table.
When asked whether Slade could be the missing link between getting that elusive victory and not Baxter said: “No single player is a cure-all to everything and you don’t suddenly put one player in and win every game but I think without doubt when you see how we lost a couple of games this season – I’m particularly talking about our two home games – you do kind of think it wouldn’t have taken much more authority or calmness on the field for those to have been, not comfortable, but they could have easily turned our way.
“So, when you look at it that way, that obviously puts a big difference on the perspective of the season.
“Would we have gone to Newcastle and played better with some points on the board? Almost certainly, so you could say there’s a big ripple effect there and that’s probably where we are as a group really.”
Stay here for all the action and pre-match build up with kick off set for 3pm.
