CHRIS HEWETT
THINKING ALLOWED

Jack Rowell, the man behind Bath’s “golden decade” at the back end of the amateur era, bore the mark of a captain of industry and revelled in the gravitas it lent him. Rob Baxter, architect of Exeter’s skyscraper rise to the pinnacle of the professional club game, is very much a man of the fields who takes pride in the dirt under his fingernails. So far, so different.
Yet as we cast an eye across the long years separating the two high-achieving coaching regimes – Rowell, below, took over at the Recreation Ground in 1978; Baxter has been in place at Sandy Par...