Wales Captain Jenkins Set for Exeter Chiefs Return

Wales captain Dafydd Jenkins, who joined Exeter as a teenager and has earned 19 international caps, is scheduled to make his comeback this Sunday in the Exeter Chiefs’ Champions Cup match against Toulouse. This marks his first appearance since July, following his recovery from shoulder surgery. The 22-year-old lock has been sidelined since Wales’ summer tour to Australia but is now deemed fit to play. Jenkins’ absence encompassed all of Wales’ autumn international fixtures, in addition to Exeter’s initial 11 league and cup encounters. The Chiefs, notably, have not secured a victory in any Premiership game so far this season. Rob Baxter, the Chiefs’ director of rugby, commented to BBC Sport on Jenkins’ influence: “He expects high standards from himself and everybody else,” Baxter stated. “He leads that in training just with the way he acts and the way he moves around the training field and the way he gets on with things.” Baxter further added, “He goes on the training field every day expecting to be the best trainer, and that creates a lot of good qualities around the squad.” Jenkins’ return makes him the most recent Exeter forward to regain fitness, as Baxter endeavors to reverse what has been the club’s most challenging start in its history as a top-flight team. Among other forwards who have recently returned to full fitness are Jenkins’ Wales team-mate Christ Tshiunza and the highly-regarded South African back-row player Jacques Vermeulen. Baxter further elaborated on the importance of collective recovery, stating: “The bigger thing is getting the group of them back together rather than one comes, one leaves,” he said. “What we need is we need to get the group to stay together and hopefully be a little bit injury free for a while.” He concluded, “It doesn’t mean we can play that same group week in, week out, but it allows you to make the changes you want to make rather than the changes you get forced into making.”