Exeter boss Rob Baxter has hailed Henry Slade after his last-second kick to earn the Chiefs a memorable win at Toulon in the Investec Champions Cup.
The 30-year-old, who was omitted from England’s World Cup squad in the summer, converted Jacques Vermeulen’s try to seal a 19-18 win in France.
It was just a fifth Champions Cup win in France in Exeter’s history.
“In the end we dealt with the pressure situation better, to be fair Sladey’s kick, that’s incredible,” Baxter said.
“If you look at his individual journey from being here 10 years ago, making his first start at 10 and a good performance and losing, to him starting his journey to begin an international players and winning a Heineken Cup and winning Premierships, to then knocking a kick over when the clock’s in the red, that’s some journey over 10 years, that’s some story,” he told BBC Radio Devon.
“I’m just really pleased that this isn’t the end for him, he’s still young enough and enthusiastic enough and playing and training like a young man that this could be seasons and seasons of watching Henry Slade do that, and that’s fantastic.”
Baxter said he had no concerns that Slade would miss the clutch kick, even with a hostile crowd at the Stade Mayol.
“What people don’t realise, and obviously their crowd wouldn’t realise, is that Sladey gets booed by the rest of the players in nearly every team meeting we have,” he added.
“So any video or anything we have that features Henry, all the lads boo, so he said to me ‘there wasn’t any difficult at all, I have that four or five times a week people booing at me, so that was a piece of cake’.
“If anything’s going to help Henry kick a goal it’s the crowd booing at him, it just brings the best out of him.
“It took some nerve, it was an incredible moment to finish the game.”
