Jenkins has captain credentials - Baxter

By Mark Stevens
23/11/22

Rob Baxter believes highly-rated forward Dafydd Jenkins has all the hallmarks of becoming Exeter's long-term captain of the future.

The Chiefs Director of Rugby has watched closely the development of the 19-year-old lock and rewarded that growth earlier this month when he made the Welshman captain for his side's Gallagher Premiership clash against London Irish.

Days later, Jenkins was called into the Wales senior squad for the first time, making his Test debut last Saturday in their narrow loss at home to Georgia at the Principality Stadium.

Now, Jenkins is set to play a big part in Exeter's upcoming fixtures, both in the Premiership and the Heineken Champions Cup, which gets underway next month with games against Castres and the Bulls.

"To me he looks like the guy who could potentially have the job longer term in the future," said Baxter.

Jenkins has played 14 times for the Chiefs since making his debut last season against Bristol Bears in the Premiership Rugby Cup last November.

"A lot of it's going to be up to him, all we can really do is create an environment for him to get on," Baxter said when asked how far Jenkins could take his career.

"The one thing is he works extremely hard, he's very diligent, very professional, he's very driven to be successful and to win things and he's a good character to be a leader and be a captain. I didn't have any hesitation making him captain when we put the squad together, yes we had some more experienced players in there."

Jenkins joined fellow Chiefs forward Christ Tshiunza in playing for Wales this autumn as the next generation of promising young players at the Devon club begin to establish themselves.

"It justifies the hard work done on recruitment that other people are seeing the quality they're playing at as well," added Baxter. "We do back young players at the right level, whenever we do recruit anybody the one thing I'm pleased to have some confidence in is saying don't look around the squad and see where you think the other good players are, because if we think you're playing better than anybody else we'll pick you, regardless of who's here and who's not here.

"I think that policy has held us well and it's held us well with Christ and held us well with Daff. We've always said to them 'if you're the right guy we'll pick you', and I've said exactly the same thing to the young Wasps lads that joined us recently."