Henry Slade: My broken leg was the darkest hour of my career yet, but now I’m back.
Henry Slade: My broken leg was the darkest hour of my career yet, but now I’m back, my aim is to break into the England team.
In 2010, Exeter Chiefs’ out-half-cum-centre Henry Slade was playing for Ivybridge RFC, a club then playing in the Tribute Western Counties West division; the seventh tier of English rugby. They are now in the fifth tier having achieved successive promotions in 2014 and 2015, and if that Devon-based club have made huge strides, then Slade has made colossal ones.
Just five years after featuring for Ivybridge, this precocious talent was picking up the Premiership Young Player of the Year award, making his England debut and travelling to the World Cup. Whirlwind.
Nothing could seemingly stop the progressively upward career trajectory of both him and his club, but of December in what must have been the year of his life, 2015, Slade broke his leg against Wasps in Coventry. Disaster. Agony. Darkness.
“The lowest point in my career was breaking my leg,” Slade reveals. “It was a dark place to be in the first few weeks after that and the whole of rehab, and mentally at first it was quite a big deal. It was pretty tough, but the physio’s here are proper class.
“Thankfully now I’m completely fine, and I’ve actually just stopped strapping it. The other day I went out for a training session and just forgot, and it felt fine, and you know it’s good then.”
Having recovered from his toughest moment in the sport so far and worked hard to make it back for the end of last season, Slade’s time for England under Eddie Jones to date reads a total of 36 minutes across three games, and each as a replacement. Challenge. Now 24 years of age, it has well and truly been received.
“Yes and no,” Slade says when I ask if it has been frustrating under Jones. “I’m in the same position now as I probably was when [Stuart] Lancaster was in as well. I’m just sort of on the edge of the squad.
“Sometimes sneaking in on the bench, sometimes not. This tour will be good for me I think, if I can play a bit more and hopefully put my best foot forward.”
The tour Slade speaks of is England’s two-Test series in Argentina this summer, with the Exeter back named as part of Jones’ 31-man squad.
With the likes of Owen Farrell and Ben Te’o away as Lions in New Zealand, this tour is a chance for Slade to make a mark. A real opportunity under Jones. And he knows it.
“Yeah I’m really excited. Obviously I’ve been in and around the squad for a while and not had much game time, so hopefully this tour can be a chance for me to get a bit more game time and show what I can do. I’m just looking forward to getting out there.
“Being sort of in and around the England squad, I want to push my way into that team and be a regular in that side.
“That’s a realistic target for me over the next year or two, or however long it takes, because I’m there or thereabouts, and that’s what I’m working towards.”
In the immediate present, Exeter face newly-crowned European champions and last year’s Premiership conquers Saracens in a league semi-final on Saturday at Sandy Park, as the self-proclaimed ‘wolf pack’ go after the much hyped ‘double double.’
The fixture is a repeat of last year’s final at Twickenham, as Exeter came within one step of what would have been the most perfect cherry to a quite astounding cake. But more on that later.
“Yeah it’s a massive challenge,” Slade says with caution but a heavy hint of eagerness. “Any team in this league is tough but when it gets down to semi-finals the intensity increases and I think we can learn from last year having been through it already, and having faced Saracens in the final.
“We take a lot of learnings from them and I think we’re in a better situation than when we faced them in that final.
“We definitely take confidence from our performance up there this season (a 13-13 draw), but I don’t know whether home advantage is as much as people say.
“We’ve gone away to loads of places and got results in recent times and Sarries have done the same. I wouldn’t say that’s a massive factor, it’s just obviously nice to be playing at home in front of our own fans and the home comforts of match-day, that sort of thing.”
If that final loss was disappointing, it was also a moment for the whole squad and rugby world to take stock of what exactly Exeter had achieved.
This is a club who 12 years ago were sharing their stadium with a local motorbike team. A club who had never experienced top flight rugby until 2010. Yet there they were in the final of the Premiership, and also having made the last eight of Europe’s elite earlier in the campaign.
This season though is different, and seismically so. Each year Exeter grow, learn and gain crucial experience. And with that, the squad thinks differently, feels differently and, consequently, aims differently.
To match last year they had to work even harder. If you stand still in sport, you go backwards, and Slade candidly admits harsh words had to be spoken in the Chiefs dressing room for them to wake up.
“There’s been a change in mindset. When we lost in the final last year, obviously we were massively disappointed, anyone is to lose a final, but we were sort of just happy that we’d had a really good season.
“I think we turned up in pre-season a bit content with how we’d done last year and maybe we’d forgot about the things that got us there.
“That’s why you saw us have a slow start to the year, and it took us to get absolutely pumped by Clermont at home, which was one of the most embarrassing occasions I’ve experienced, for us to sit down, look each other in the eyes and talk to each other, and say how are we going to get to where we want to be?
“From then on we’ve just worked ridiculously hard, in training and matches, and we’ve gone on this run now of how many games is it? 15 wins or something ridiculous.
“And it’s just all come from getting a kick up the arse from Clermont and us reflecting and deciding we shouldn’t be content with coming second, we should be angered by coming second, and make that drive us to be champions this year. That’s what we’ve done.”
You know a run of form is good when you can’t remember how many wins you’re on. It’s 15 league games undefeated with 13 wins and two draws, but you get the picture.
As previously mentioned, quite like his club, Slade’s is a career with explosive beginnings. But how did it actually all happen for him? How does a man jump from the seventh tier to the World Cup in five years?
“I just got into the academy at Exeter and Rob [Baxter] and Ali [Hepher] and the coaches here, they didn’t push us on too early. Us young boys like myself, Jack [Nowell], Luke [Cowan-Dickie], Sam [Hill], they didn’t push us.
“He [Baxter] gave us a year or two out on loan down in the Championship. I was at Plymouth with a couple of the boys, and a few were down with the [Cornish] Pirates. So we had a bit of time just to get used to men’s rugby.
“Then they gave us our shot and I’ve sort of never really looked back from there. For a season and a half I got more game time coming off the bench and a few starts.
“Then the year after that, we had a bit of a centre crisis injury-wise in pre-season, and we had basically no centres for our last warm-up game before the Premiership season started.
“And I remember, the team gets emailed to us, and I remember looking at the email and it said, Slade at 13, and I was like: ‘I’ve never played 13 in my life’.
“I came in the next morning and said to Ali, ‘are you sure I’m 13?’, and he said: ‘yeah, yeah definitely. You’ll be alright’.
“No warning, I just saw it on the team sheet and thought, ‘S**t, I’ve been dropped straight in at the deep end’.
“So I tried it and it went pretty well against Worchester (pre-season), and then I started there and I ended up playing pretty much the whole season at 13.
“That was my breakthrough year and the time I won the Young Player of the Year and it was a big year for me. I ended up getting into the World Cup squad from there, which was a tough summer but it was an awesome experience. Obviously we didn’t do that well but it was great for me as a young player to be involved in that.
“But then I obviously broke my leg, had a hard rehab to get back, got back a few games before the play-offs. We didn’t quite make it, but now we’re here.”
An unforeseen set of circumstances, a twist of luck to get in and then sink or swim basically, and swim he did from outside-centre.
A teammate to have come through at the same time as Slade at almost every level is Jack Nowell, a man now a firm fixture on the wing with England and upcoming Lions tourist.
If things had gone differently for Slade, he too could be on that plane to New Zealand, and I ask if there is a sense frustration there.
He is open enough in his answer to acknowledge that such thoughts have, of course, crossed his mind, but is also pragmatic enough to wrestle with such thoughts and move forward.
“I do think sometimes that if maybe I hadn’t broken my leg I might have been involved a bit more internationally. That injury came at a bad time, but there’s probably never a good time to get one anyway.
“Yeah you can look at it and see Jack [Nowell] now and think like that, but there’s nothing I can do about it so I’ve just got to get my head down now and do my best.”
His emergence has, in a way, sort of mirrored Exeter’s own. Tipped by all to go straight back down in their first Premiership year, Exeter are now developing into European regulars and Premiership challengers.
From Championship wanderers to a bona fide Premiership force. And though he hasn’t been there for all of it, Slade has developed alongside most of it.
“It’s an awesome experience. I mean, I was in the academy for two years before I signed my first contract and now I’m into my sixth contract year.
“So I’ve been seven or eight years around the place, and to see it grow and see us go from where we were to now is incredible.
“One of the most memorable was when I wasn’t actually [professionally] contracted at the time, but it was in our first season in the premiership when everyone said: ‘you are going straight back down’, and we ended up finishing eighth, outdoing a lot of teams.
“From there I think we’ve never really gone and tried to bite too much off at a time, we’ve just gradually done it.
“And that’s a credit to the coaches and the way they’ve done things and sort of run this whole place. You see us gradually, incrementally getting better all the time.
“Eighth, to sixth, to fifth, then we won the LV Cup, then we just missed out on the playoffs, then we got the playoffs and we’re in them again this year.
“We’re getting better and better and hopefully we keep that going. The only way to get better from last year is to win the thing and we’re going to try.”
One man who has been there for all of Exeter’s journey is their coach Rob Baxter. Devon-born, Chiefs player for 14 years, captain for 10, forwards coach after his retirement and now head coach since 2009. An extraordinary career utterly and unequivocally devoted to the Chiefs. Slade describes him as Exeter’s ‘rock’.
“What I was saying about us not trying to bite off too big a bit at once, taking it gradually, that’s down to Rob and his coaches.
“It’s just the way he’s always got his feet on the ground, he never gets too carried away with a big win. Obviously he’ll show he’s happy with the boys, but I think regardless of a big win or big loss, he’s very level headed and I think for a team to have that is really important.
“If you’ve got a coach who’s losing his mind at you one second and then bigging you up the next, the side can be all over the shop, but because we’ve got a rock that’s there in Rob who’s in charge of us, it just settles the boys right down.
“Domestically, I want to win honours with Exeter. We’ve got a big opportunity this season to win the league and that would be absolutely awesome.
“To do it with your best mates who you hang around with all the time. To win something like that with these boys would be amazing, and if not this year then we’ll keep striving for it until we win it.”
And how could you possibly right them off? Saracens may be a truly stunning side at the moment, but there really is a sense of divine intervention with this Chiefs group.
It may not be this season, but their hunger for the top prize is growing. A hunger epitomised by Henry Slade.
Comments on RugbyPass
I like the offside rule, but this won't affect my team because all their kicks gets chased and that putts everyone on side. Lekker manne!
8 Go to comments20 minute Red Card is untenable. If you don’t punish the whole team, coaches won’t be sufficently incentivised to pick players with, or coach better tackle technique.
1 Go to commentsI can only think of One time ever a team has opted for a scrum from a free kick… Why the law change I wonder
8 Go to commentsYeah, its not going to work. But we see you World Rugby.
8 Go to commentsLove the reaction after last 2 W.Cups re rule changes…maybe good for more for more of a “ league” type running game( which I personally don’t like) but seems Rassie is definitely in ther heads…
8 Go to commentsGreat. More unwanted changes. Because these always work out well.
8 Go to commentsI’m sure South Africa’s opponents will rejoice at World Rugby minimising one of the Boks’ most potent weapons, but you just know Rassie is cooking something up with free-kicks that no-one else has thought of. Let them play checkers. Rassie’s playing chess. 😂
8 Go to commentsAfter a fairly simple Pac4, the BFs will find out a lot about themselves in September when they face the rampaging RedRoses at Twickenham in front of a record crowd. After that they will face them again in Canada in WXV1. They also have France to contend with. Will be interesting to see what Australia have to offer with Jo Yapp at the helm.
1 Go to commentsSuper Rugby Pacific has been better as a spectacle due to the emphasis on speeding the game up and I’d look at taking things a step further. Instead of giving teams 90 seconds to take a conversion, let’s bring that down 60 seconds. You could also look at allowing 45 seconds for a penalty goal. Maybe teams could get 20 seconds instead of 30 to form a scrum before the ref then starts the engagement process. However, this year the most pleasing change is the added competitiveness in the Trans Tasman matches. What does frustrate me is how the rugby media in Australasia allow the the whole ‘‘rugby is boring’’/’’rugby yawnion’’ narrative to take hold from from vindictive league types, the chairman of the ARL commission and News Limited Australia. Stick up for the game and shift the narrative!
22 Go to commentsIt’s not new for nines to be the key playmaker. For the Boks it has been common, with Fourie du Preez and Joost vd Westhuizen being obvious examples. It's also not that recent for nines to be box kicking, covering high balls in the back field, and tackling in the defensive line. For example, Faf de Klerk has been doing all of that for years.
6 Go to commentsThe hell with this constant regurgitation of what this pretty boy is doing. For all I care he might as well be doing a Jamie Oliver cooking course. Rugby is not a progression toward the NFL, which, given its prominence in your reporting, you appear to regard as the ultimate contact sport. It has virtually nothing to do with rugby, and forever may that remain the case. I know that if I don’t like it I don’t have to read it, but I’m sick of seeing this dishwater-dull nonsense.
2 Go to commentsGuys Eben did not mean it in a ugly way as it’s just a feeling he had. We Safas rate the All Blacks and no Bok player wants to play NZ in a Knockout game
148 Go to commentsHe basically described who Aaron Smith also considers the GOAT 9….the one & only Fourie du Preez😎
6 Go to commentsI’m hoping that the Reds can win their last 4 games with a couple of try bonus points. The pessimist in me wouldn't be surprised if the Drua and the Tahs knock the Reds over. The Reds may end up ruing the fact they were distinctly 2nd best against the Force and just so clunky against Moana Pasifica. The Brumbies should win all their remaining games with some bonus points giving them at least a top 2 finish as the leading Kiwi sides will take points off each other. How the Brumbies handle the fact that they will be expected to beat the Crusaders will fascinate me. You’d probably have to go back to 2001 for the last time the Brumbies would go into a game against the Crusaders odds on to win.
8 Go to commentsFree to air is the key to fan expansion. I attended last weeks game at Suncorp (Reds v Blues) and the total cost is prohibitive to most people that wish to attend. Two tickets $130, parking (event day gouging) $75, road tolls $20, dinner beforehand $130, plus some petrol and a beer inside the stadium and a single game starts to cost $300-400. Who can afford that week in week out, I’d love to go more but could only afford this one game to see the Blues, I’d have loved to have seen more NZ teams here but I’d need to stop eating or sell a kidney.
22 Go to commentsBrumbies are looking good and if they keep their home form up a final is not beyond the realms of possibility. They showed against the Hurricanes exactly how clinical they can be as they absorbed pressure in that contest while also scoring points and applying their own pressure. Reds are well placed as well but need to find consistency. They are building a longer term project with a young side and plenty of quality players. Been surprising to see the strength of Aussie sides this year after the debacle of the world cup. Have NZ sides gotten weaker? Have Aussie sides gotten stronger? A bit of both I would say. Whatever the case its good to see some actual competition between NZ and Aus sides again and thats exactly what the fans wanted and is probably driving better viewership numbers. All of this can only be healthy for Aus and Super Rugby and I hope the Brumbies go all the way.
8 Go to commentsDead time reductions are important as is ball in play time increases. Premiership leads the way in terms of ball in play and Northern refereeing standards around the breakdown has sped up the game significantly. Super Rugby is trying new things but its not leading the way in terms of making gains in reducing dead time and ball in play time. Northern administrators are also not against speeding up the game, on the contrary they want a faster game and have been trying things and are embracing increasing the speed of rugby. Super Rugby isnt providing a blueprint for anything, its just part the agreed upon blueprint that administrators across the world are moving to.
22 Go to commentsSome interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
22 Go to commentsAll of these media pundits always miss the obvious whenever they analyse what is ailing or assisting the game. Rugby always has contentious points for debate when picking apart individual games and finding fault with itself. All this focus and scrutiny on “speeding up the game”, “high ball in play” etc is all contextual to the fan. As a tv viewer, if you’re absorbed into a game, regardless if your team is playing or not, more ball in play time and action are all byproducts of the contest. A good contest subliminally affects your memory in selectively remembering all the good aspects. A poor contest and your brain has switched off because its a blowout and the result is never in doubt or it’s a real chore to watch and remain engaged throughout. The URC, Top 14 and English premiership are all competitions that feel like there’s real jeopardy each week. The dominance of Super rugby by NZ teams was unhealthy from a sustainable interest perspective. You can’t fault those teams or the players, but the lack of competitions won by SA and Australian teams long term was always going to test the faith and patience of die-hard and casual fans from those regions. SANZAR took their eye off the fans and fans voted with their feet and subscriptions. They were so concerned about expanding their product they forgot the golden rule about broadcasting live sport. Viewers tune in more when there’s an atmosphere and a true contest. You need to fill stadiums to create one, host unions need to do more to service ticket buyers, and this year proves the other, there’s more interest in Super rugby this year only because more games are competitive with less foregone conclusions. All these micro statistics bandied about, only interest the bean counters and trainspotters.
22 Go to commentsThe match experience still sucks at SR games, irrespective of the game being a little quicker. Rugby has to compete with so much in the modern world, if you’re going to get people to leave their houses and pay to watch a game in winter then the experience has to be worthwhile.
22 Go to comments