Rob Baxter says he would happily meet with Eddie Jones’ bosses as they search for a home-grown successor to their Australian head coach.
Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney has pledged to appoint an Englishman when Jones stands down after the 2023 World Cup.
Baxter is the leading English contender with the bookies. But until Twickenham chiefs define precisely the job description he says it is impossible to say whether he would throw his hat in the ring.
The Exeter boss said: “I would be happy to have a chat about what the role is, how they see it working and what their plans and ambitions are. For obvious reasons there’s an interest in it.
“But I’ll be honest with you, we don’t really know what the job is. That’s one of the RFU’s challenges - to really decide. Unless you know what it is, it’s hard to say yes or no to anything.”
Baxter, 51, is clear in his support for Sweeney’s plan for the RFU to appoint straight from the Premiership for the first time since Bath’s Brian Ashton took charge from Andy Robinson in 2006.
“I’m not one of these people who sit here and says ‘the English coach must be English’,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a prerequisite that it has to be an Englishman at all.
“But I think it’s good that they’re looking within the English game as if you look historically there has been a preference to ignore Premiership coaches.
“It puts some meat on the bones about trying to develop coaches within the English game.”
For all that he believes the RFU must first make up its mind what it wants - before turning its attention to the question of who.
“Is it a Director of Rugby-type role; someone who brings in a coaching team and is prepared to work with those guys?” asked Baxter, who coached England’s forwards on the 2013 tour of Argentina.
“Is it an on-field guy, blowing a whistle – directing how the team are actually playing?
“Is it that they want to find the guy first and he fits into a role he is comfortable with and is good at?
“Or is it that they will say, ‘We want this kind of person and this is what the role has to be’?
“Answer that and then you might genuinely see guys saying, ‘Right, that is a role for me’ or, ‘That’s not a role for me’.”
Baxter has guided Exeter to the last six Premiership finals, winning in 2017 and 2020, and insists he is not looking to leave.
Since he took charge at Chiefs in 2009, England have gone outside the Premiership and hired, in order, Martin Johnson, Stuart Lancaster and Jones as head coaches.
