Baxter delighted to land new recruit
By Mark Stevens
17/2/20
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter has spoken of his delight after he today bolstered his squad options for next season with the acquisition of Scottish international Sam Hidalgo-Clyne
The 26-year-old scrum-half is Baxter’s second new arrival ahead of the 2020/21 campaign, following compatriot and international team-mate Jonny Gray in joining the Devonians on a two-year deal.
Hidalgo-Clyne, who is currently playing for French Top14 side Lyon, has been earmarked by Baxter as an ideal candidate to help fill the void which will be left by departing Aussie international Nic White at the end of the season.
White is set to bring the curtain down on his three-year stint with the Chiefs when he returns home this summer to re-join former club, the Brumbies.
Keen to ensure that the Chiefs had proven quality coming into the squad, Baxter feels he has found the ideal replacement in Hildalgo-Clyne, who has 12 Test caps to his name.
“Obviously with Nic moving on at the end of the season, we felt we needed to look for someone who could come in and help add to our existing scrum-half group,” said Baxter. “We’ve looked closely at Sam and what he can bring and we like what we see in him.
“Not only is he very experienced, but he’s performed at a very good level for a number of years now. We've watched him closely now for a while and we think he is one of those guys who is already a good player, capable of playing well both in the Premiership and in European games. That said, we still feel he is on that upward curve of performance and that's the important thing.
“We see Sam as a guy who is physically, tactically and technically improving and those are the kind of players we want to bring to the club. We want to get that balance of guys who come in and add something over a period of time and that is what we feel Sam can do. He has got very good elements to his game already and we feel those foundations are something which can be built on in the future.”
Hidalgo-Clyne started his senior career with Edinburgh in 2011, playing for seven years in the Scottish capital. He amassed over 100 appearances and 470 points for the club, before he made the switch to the Scarlets in the summer of 2018.
Although that move to west Wales didn’t quite pan out as well as Hidalgo-Clyne would have hoped for, he has since continued his career with stints at Harlequins, Racing 92 and, more recently, Lyon.
“What we see is a lot of good things in Sam’s game,” added Baxter. “But, like with a lot of people we bring in here, we also see some areas where we can continue to develop him, which is quite important. He’s not an old player by any means, he’s young and ambitious, and he wants to achieve things in the game. We feel we can create that environment for him and we can create a launchpad for him to further his career moving forward.”