Baxter to look at Irish youngster

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter says Irish youngster Jerry Sexton has been handed a “great opportunity” to prove his worth at the Aviva Premiership club.

The 21-year-old lock (pictured) has this week joined the Chiefs on trial under the end of November with the view of trying to earn himself a much longer deal.

With Baxter’s options in the second row having been dealt a blow to captain Dean Mumm having to undergo shoulder surgery this summer, the Exeter leader has wasted little time in looking to bolster numbers in that department.

He said: “He’s here on a trial until the end of November. People are aware that Dean’s picked up a knock and after having the operation he’s going to be out for a little longer than we originally hoped and that’s upped the workload on the players we have here.

“Looking at the pre-season we have, the academy games we have in place, our A League and LV= Cup in the first three or four months of the season, we could be a little bit stretched in our resources. Will Carrick-Smith is on a loan with the Pirates, and although we can pull him back for a Premiership match, their Championship games will potentially take priority over A League games.

“I had a bit of a look around and I felt we needed someone quickly, someone who was available and someone who had some experience of running a line-out at a certain level to give us some cover both in training and some of our games.

“It’s a great opportunity for Jerry to earn a longer-term contract and potentially play more than A League and provide more than training cover for us. He’s obviously a highly motivated lad. When things didn’t work out for him in Leinster’s academy he took himself off to France to play some Pro D2 rugby and things like that are quite important in seeing a mature player.

“I’m not going to say I’ve seen loads of him as there isn’t a lot available of him, but we’re putting an opportunity in front of him and it’s for him to take. We started talking to his agent over the weekend and he was here having a screening just after 9 on Tuesday morning. He’s been training a bit with his club side St Mary’s and now it’s for him to get stuck into training with us.”

Already this summer Baxter has added lock Ryan Caldwell from Bath to give strength to that area of the Chiefs squad, but the loss of Mumm (pictured) is certainly an untimely blow with just weeks until the season kicks-off with an away trip to newly-promoted London Welsh on Sunday, September 7.

Baxter knows the importance of Aussie international Mumm to the cause, but he will not risk losing his talisman for a longer period by rushing him back into the fold sooner than he needs to.

He added: “We’re still hopefully we could potentially get him back at the end of the first block of Premiership games, but that’s not a certainty. He’s very much early on in his rehab and it’s something that is going to have to take the right length of time.”