Rob Baxter's deal to bring Toulon's Ben White to Exeter is off

Exeter Chiefs boss Rob Baxter has been sent back to the drawing board after seeing a move for Scotland scrum-half Ben White scuppered by Top 14 high flyers Toulon at the last minute.

Baxter, who has made a new scrum-half his top priority for next season, thought that he had in place a three-year deal to bring the 26-year-old, Stoke-on-Trent-born White back to the Gallagher Premiership, only for it to dramatically fall through.

White started his career with Leicester and became the youngest player in their Premiership history, coming off the bench in September 2016 against Harlequins at the age of 17 years and 151 days.

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The former England U20s international has been plying his trade on the Cote d’Azur since London Irish went out of business in 2023 and only signed a new contract to stay with Toulon until 2026 earlier this year.

Baxter will now have a look to see who else is available, admitting that he has to look at recruitment differently after the Chiefs slumped to the bottom of the Premiership after losing all seven of their games this season.

“I’m not going to run away from the fact that, as the bottom team in the Premiership, recruitment is a little different. You have to look at the squad and decide who is standing up and who is moving forward,” he said.

“You want to keep your off-contract players who look like they are improving. At the same time, you look at the squad and say, ‘What do we need to change and improve?’

“I’m not looking to gut the squad because I don’t believe that is the right thing to do. I believe getting recruitment right will take some time. Bringing in four journeymen to fill three or four slots won’t make a big difference for us.

“There is no point in bringing in someone because we might want to pick some of the guys who are in and around the England under-20 squad. I’m only going to recruit guys who I think will improve us from where we are now.

“I’m determined not to get panicked into signing the wrong players. We are only going to approach players to make us better. I’d rather bring in two really high-quality players than four, five or six squad players.”