Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter has said he is the man to move the club forward after two of his key coaches were removed from their roles.
Head coach Rob Hunter has left the club while backs coach Ali Hepher is still suspended in the wake of Exeter’s record 79-17 loss at Gloucester last month.
Baxter has taken direct control of the team for the rest of the season after the duo were removed from their roles last week.
“I am where I am, I’m going to coach the team how I coach the team”, Baxter told BBC Sport.
“I think I know how to move us forward and that’s what I’m going to do.
” People can make their own decisions or own surmises on who should be here and who shouldn’t be here, that’s never been a concern of mine in the past.
‘ Our expectations have dropped quite low ‘
Baxter refused to be drawn deeper on the reasons why Hunter and Hepher were suspended – last week chairman Tony Rowe said there had been a “clear disconnect” between the players and coaches.
The 54-year-old Baxter would also not discuss if Hepher would still take a role helping Exeter’s academy players transition to the first team – a job he was due to take in the summer having been demoted as head coach in favour of Hunter in March.
The ousting of the duo followed Exeter’s decision to part with defence coach Omar Mouneimne in October as the club try to overcome their worst-ever season since promotion to the top flight in 2010.
They are second from bottom having won just three games all season and lost all four of their European Champions Cup matches, including a 69-17 defeat by Bordeaux – a club record continental loss.
Baxter said the team’s attitude must change as they prepare to host champions Northampton on Sunday, eight days after Saints beat Leinster in Dublin in the Champions Cup.
“I think almost without realising it our expectations have dropped to a relatively low level”, Baxter added.
“We’ve almost not realised that actually our expectations have dropped quite low.
” We’re a Premiership rugby club who had three seasons once where we lost one home Premiership game.
Germany’s new government has ordered border police to turn away undocumented immigrants, including some asylum seekers, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt says.
Dobrindt on Wednesday announced the decision to rescind a 2015 instruction that had allowed entry for undocumented third-country nationals, saying the new order is aimed at reducing irregular migration because the numbers were too high.
He said exceptions would be made for “vulnerable groups”, including pregnant women and children, but his assertion that Germany would turn away some asylum seekers goes beyond what the previous government was willing to do.
“We are not going to close the borders, but we are going to control the borders more strictly, and this stronger control of the borders will also lead to a higher number of rejections”, Dobrindt told reporters in Berlin.
“We will gradually increase this higher number of rejections and the stronger controls at the borders”, he added. “We will ensure that, step by step, more police forces are deployed at the borders and can also carry out these pushbacks”.
The 2015 instruction was given under then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose term was defined by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in Germany, many fleeing war in Syria.
The rejection of asylum seekers is legally controversial. The coalition agreement between Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives and the Social Democrats says the move should be made in coordination with neighbouring countries.
The announcement comes on the first full day of work for the government led by Merz, who has taken a hardline stance on irregular migration.
Dobrindt told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that there would be increased police presence at the border in the coming days.
He plans to send up to 3, 000 additional officers to Germany’s borders to curb irregular migration, which would raise the number of border police to up to 14, 000, according to the German newspaper Bild, which quoted unnamed government sources.
The chairman of the GdP police union, Andreas Rosskopf, told the Rheinische Post newspaper that police have begun to increase the number of officers deployed to Germany’s land borders after receiving verbal instruction to do so.
The border force has been instructed to reorganise rosters where necessary “to achieve greater availability”, he said.
News magazine Der Spiegel reported that Dobrindt had ordered extra police to be deployed and they would have to work shifts of up to 12 hours a day to enforce the new policy.
Before the German elections in February, Merz promised a crackdown on migration after a spate of violent crimes blamed on foreign nationals amid rising support for the far right.
His coalition , has since agreed , to reject asylum seekers at borders, enable deportations to Syria and suspend family reunions.
Migration has been a contentious issue in Germany, the third largest refugee-hosting country in the world with 2.5 million refugees, including more than one million refugees from Ukraine. A growing number of German voters say they want the country to accept fewer immigrants.
Immigration and asylum were hotly discussed before , February’s elections, in which the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party doubled its vote share.
In April, the country suspended the admission of refugees through a United Nations programme as the outgoing centre-left Social Democrats formed a new coalition with Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Playing a final in Spain on a Sunday, flying home to see his family and dog and then practising in Italy on a Wednesday points to the type of whirlwind schedule that could become the new normal for Jack Draper.
This is the price of success on the ATP Tour, which the British number one is getting accustomed to.
After playing in the Madrid Open final, Draper was practising at the Italian Open in Rome three days later – although the reasonably close proximity to home meant he still squeezed in a flying visit to spend time with his grandparents, mother Nicky and dog Ozzie.
The new world number five – who became the Indian Wells champion in March and finished runner-up to Casper Ruud in Madrid – was not home for long.
He had a practice session with Russia’s Andrey Rublev to get to, as he builds up to his opening match in the Foro Italico on Friday.
“It’s becoming normal now for me,” Draper told BBC Sport, shortly after arriving on site for the first time.
“These events, they are tough, they are gruelling, they are long. But that’s tennis, it is relentless and I feel like mentally I’m adapting to that and I feel good.
Success brings vast rewards, but also challenges.
Towards the end of last year, Draper spoke openly about the difficulties of short turnarounds and the “mental” calendar for the top players.
He made those comments while representing his nation in the Davis Cup in Manchester just a week after he played in the US Open semi-finals in New York.
In Madrid, Draper played four matches in four days to reach the final and is now hoping to make an impact on the Italian clay – another ATP Masters tournament which forms a key part of the French Open build-up.
Extending the Madrid and Rome tournaments to 12 days has brought criticism, although it is cases like these – allowing players reaching the weekend more recovery time – which were cited as a key reason behind the move.
After Indian Wells, however, the 23-year-old Englishman lost his first match in Miami, which was played six days after he had won his first Masters 1,000 title.
Draper feels confident he can thrive on the clay courts of Rome and Roland Garros, where conditions are slower than in Madrid.
“Let’s see, let’s see,” he said.
“I’m confident that I’m playing some really good tennis, on any surface, any conditions, and I think that if I do all the right things I’m going to be a tough guy to beat.
“After Monte Carlo I was hoping for a bit of a clay breakthrough, because I know what I’m bringing in practice, but there I really struggled and so going into Madrid I was a bit apprehensive.
Inter Milan are one victory away from Champions League redemption after Tuesday’s chaotic, mesmerising win over Barcelona which propelled the Italians into their second final in three seasons.
Simone Inzaghi’s team had been in a fragile state in recent weeks after their treble bid went up in smoke, surrendering top spot in Serie A to Napoli and being dumped out of the Italian Cup by local rivals AC Milan.
But beating star-studded Barca, and the incredible manner in which they did it, has completely changed the atmosphere at Inter who are now bullish about their chances of being crowned kings of Europe for the fourth time.
Inter Milan’s Italian midfielder #16 Davide Frattesi (3L) celebrates scoring his team’s fourth goal with teammates during the UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg football match between Inter Milan and FC Barcelona at the San Siro stadium in Milan on May 6, 2025. (Photo by PIERO CRUCIATTI / AFP)
READ ALSO: Inter Snatch Late Winner Against Barcelona In Champions League Thriller
Inter will take on either Arsenal or Paris Saint-Germain in Munich knowing their task will be nowhere near as difficult as it was two years ago, when they were narrowly beaten by possibly the best Manchester City team of the Pep Guardiola era.
That single-goal defeat to City in Istanbul was a bitter one for Inter who felt they were the better team on the night, bridging a monstrous financial gap with the mega-rich Premier League club with tactical nous and desire.
Barcelona’s Spanish forward #19 Lamine Yamal (C) gestures during the UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg football match between Inter Milan and FC Barcelona at the San Siro stadium in Milan on May 6, 2025. (Photo by Marco BERTORELLO / AFP)
“We’ve been thinking about this since the day after we lost the last final,” said captain Lautaro Martinez, almost sobbing with joy after the final whistle.
“Now we’ve got to rest and finish the season well, knowing we have another opportunity to make history.”
Inter have always had the reputation of being an anarchic, crazy club, as capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as they are winning major titles.
Their 7-6 triumph over Barca, which flipped one way and the next over the course of two barely believable legs, fully lived up to their nickname of “Pazza (mad) Inter”.
Martinez had been a doubt right until the eve of the match but recovered from a hamstring injury in time to both score and win a penalty which gave Inter their 2-0 half-time lead.
And Francesco Acerbi would ordinarily get a nosebleed being as far forward as he was to send the tie into extra-time with his first ever Champions League goal, at 37 years old, just as it looked like Raphinha had sealed a stunning comeback win for Barca.
‘Proud’ Inter
The Catalan giants could barely believe what they were seeing when super-sub Davide Frattesi guided home his extra-time winner, unused to being the team on the end of landmark defeats and frustrated at how their at times untouchable play failed to bear its expected fruit.
Barcelona’s Spanish forward #19 Lamine Yamal (R) shoots the ball past Inter Milan’s Brazilian defender #30 Carlos Augusto during the UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg football match between Inter Milan and FC Barcelona at the San Siro stadium in Milan on May 6, 2025. (Photo by Marco BERTORELLO / AFP)
If anything Tuesday’s win felt like a mark of destiny for a grand old team who have had to battle desperate financial difficulties and an enforced change of ownership just as Inzaghi has made Inter one of Europe’s pre-eminent sides.
“We were up against a great team, but we’ve been raising our game for the last four or five years, every single year, and we’re so proud of that,” said Martinez.
Inzaghi risked ending the season with nothing but criticism after trying to fight on three fronts with a budget that is dwarfed by those of Europe’s other major clubs.
Inter, like the rest of cash-strapped Serie A, can no longer attract the world’s top stars so Inzaghi has had to create a team unit, a spirit that shines through on the big occasion.
Victory in Munich would be just reward for a coach who joined a club in turmoil in 2021 following the departure of both Antonio Conte and a clutch of star players, and he was close to the sack not long before Inter reached the Champions League final two years later.
Inzaghi’s ability was questioned after Inter lost a dramatic Serie A title battle with Milan in his first season and then finished 18 points behind 2023 champions Napoli.
But he has since risen to become one of football’s elite coaches and now he and Inter have the chance of a lifetime to win club football’s biggest prize.
Former Rangers chairman Dave King believes there’s a “a 90% probability” of the club’s proposed takeover by 49ers Enterprises going ahead.
The consortium have a controlling interest in Leeds United, who have won the Championship to return to the Premier League after a two-year absence.
Rangers confirmed last month that “productive conversations” had taken place with the group, who are also the investment wing of the 49ers NFL franchise.
“I would say that there’s probably a 90% probability it will happen,” Rangers’ largest shareholder King told TalkSport.
“These discussions have been going on for a long time, six months.
“In terms of legals being signed, in terms of the type of conditions present that still have to be fulfilled, I would certainly put it at above 90% right now.
And King, who says mid-June is a realistic timescale for completion of the deal, commented: “The situation regarding Leeds, as I understand it, is not going to be a distraction from Rangers.
“With Rangers you don’t have the yo-yo risk. No disrespect to Leeds. At least when they come into Rangers, they know if they make an investment that European football is pretty much assured.
“It’s difficult to envisage Rangers or Celtic not being first or second so European football in various stages will be there.
“And I think it’s easier to put the financial plan to support the football planning a club like Rangers than it is for someone like Leeds United, where I think it’s a lot more challenge.
“As exciting as it is for them to be going up to the Premier League, they’re going to have to make a lot of budgeting decisions to stay there.”
The Ibrox side will finish second in the this season’s Scottish Premiership, with Celtic having secured a fourth successive title and an course for a domestic treble.
Europa League quarter-finalists Rangers will enter the Champions League at the second qualifying round stage.
“I don’t think we’re two or three players away from challenging for the league title,” King added.
