Baxter wasn't approached for England job

Rob Baxter thoughts were never on the possibility of taking over as England’s head coach this past week but on his side bouncing back from last week’s defeat by Ospreys to kick start their European Champions Cup.

His Exeter Chiefs side’s first victory against French opposition came with a 34-19 bonus point victory over Bordeaux-Bègles on a bitterly cold night at Sandy Park after the 9,577 crowd had observed a one-minute silence in memory of those killed in Paris last week.

Baxter wasn’t disappointed that England didn’t give him a call when they were looking for a replacement for Stuart Lancaster, as he is perfectly happy at Exeter Chiefs, but he hopes Eddie Jones will consider some of his player in the coming weeks.

“He has already said that he is starting with a clean sheet, thats great for the players and great for me from a coaching point of view what I am talking to our English qualified players,” said Baxter.

“I’ll tell them to start racking-up some points in their favour now but that normally starts with winning games and playing well. We probably didn’t show ourselves in a great light last week but this week we showed more qualities that we are use to seeing.

“Human nature should save to those players that they want to impress him [Jones] and they’ll want to make sure that they are playing well in these games when he first starts to look at them. “I would like to think that any of our players who have genuine ambitions to play for England will been driven that little but more to show some qualities now. Don’t know him [Jones] at all but I am looking forward to meeting him and to discuss our lads.

“I’d hope to learn how he sees things going forward as I don’t know too much about his coaching style. I would like to think that some England coaches had been considered, I certainly wasn’t asked, but it is now for the Premiership sides to produce the players.”

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See also http://www.theexeterdaily.co.uk/news/sport/chiefs-return-winning-ways