Exodus Chiefs: How Exeter, a modern dynasty of English rugby, lost its aura
If in any normal season Premiership side Exeter Chiefs announced the mid-season departure of a brilliant young winger such as Facundo Cordero there would have been a slight feeling of disappointment among the fanbase.
But the Argentinian’s move north to Scotland’s Glasgow Warriors instead heaped further dismay on supporters of Exeter, because Cordero’s exit represents just the next one on a bandwagon of Chiefs players departing Devon.
Lock Ruben van Heerden and forward Santiago Grondona are among the others who have left the former European champions mid-season and come the summer the club will be shedding many more of their star players.
Exeter’s exodus
Sam Simmonds is off to Montpellier alongside Luke Cowan-Dickie and Harry Williams – all potentially giving up England selection to do so – while Sam’s brother Joe is heading to fellow Top14 outfit Pau.
Jannes Kirsten is off back to South Africa and Dave Ewers is bound for Irish province Ulster.
There are discussions about international trio Henry Slade, Stuart Hogg and Jack Nowell’s futures too, given recent links to overseas clubs.
The exodus at the Chiefs is plain for all to see, and it reflects both the strain on the English top flight given the new salary cap restrictions as well as the theory of rotating squad cycles.
Exeter featured in every Premiership final between 2015-16 and the 2020-2021, during which time they also won a domestic league cup and the Champions Cup.
Their miniature dynasty was one of the most dominant seen in English professional rugby, given they had only been promoted at the beginning of the last decade.
Of the 23 who won the 2020 Champions Cup final against Racing 92 during the Covid-19 pandemic, 14 have either left the club and are still playing, are confirmed to be leaving Devon, or rumoured to be ditching the Chiefs.
Rugby insiders tell City A.M. that a large chunk of the issue comes down to chief executive and main backer Tony Rowe giving players bumper new contracts during the pandemic while other teams were making significant pay cuts.
Contract woes
This in turn has led to a number of players out of contract at the same time who are being offered a higher wage elsewhere at a time when more English clubs are having to tighten their purse-strings.
“We used to be a team who sought cast-offs and has-beens from other teams in the Premiership and other competitions,” one fan told City A.M.
“We seemed to have stopped looking for those kinds of players because our success enticed and signed [bigger] players like Hogg and Jonny Gray.
“The money went up massively for people like Cowan-Dickie, Slade and Nowell and that seemed to stop us from nurturing talent like we used to.
“I said at the time I would rather have kept a player like Santiago [Facundo’s brother and fellow back who left for Bordeaux in 2019] over signing Hogg and I stand by that now, however many years later.”
Star spread
So has the club steered too far away from what made it so good? Saracens, too, have star players dotted throughout their squad but recruited wisely through the likes of Mako and Billy Vunipola and Theo McFarland while cherry-picking marquee signings.
Exeter through the years has been a club of grit and determination, a team of bulldozing forwards who often seemed unstoppable to the opposition.
But times change, so do tactics and club cycles come to an end. Exeter’s greatest cycle is coming to an end.
So as the club backtrack on ticket prices following a season of low attendances and the team looks to rebuild itself into something fans can identify with again given significant changes off the field, maybe the exodus at Exeter should in fact be seen as a celebration.
A celebration of what happened, of what the club achieved across the past 10 years, and as a bookend to an era the club may never see the likes of again.