Fin Baxter Exclusive: Harlequins youngster talks childhood dreams, form & not being one dimensional
Fin Baxter made his first start for Harlequins in the Heineken Champions Cup against Racing 92
©JMP for Harlequins
Into his third season as a professional rugby player, 21-year-old loosehead prop Fin Baxter is enjoying his best season to date with Harlequins.
On Saturday afternoon, Baxter is likely to be taking part in his first Big Game with the club against Exeter Chiefs in the Gallagher Premiership. With six games to go in their season, Harlequins are currently eighth in the Premiership and five points away from the top four.
A win over fifth-place Exeter could go a long way to propel the side into play-off contention, as clashes with Saracens, Leicester Tigers and Bristol Bears all beckon. Among the ranks looking to go back to a Premiership final is Fin Baxter.
Nearly two years ago when Harlequins upset the odds to beat Chiefs in the Premiership final, the young prop was travelling reserve. Walking across Chertsey Road with his teammates earlier in the day, the 21-year-old watched as his teammates played out the highest-scoring final in the competition’s history.
Playing in Saturday’s fixture is something of a dream for Baxter, who grew up a Harlequins supporter. Beginning his rugby journey with Cobham RFC before attending Wellington School, the prop has been a regular at the Big Game and is certainly enthusiastic about the occasion.
“It is my first Big Game this weekend and I am so excited for it,” Baxter told TRU. “I remember the draw against Leicester [2018, 30-30 draw], where Leicester were in their fancy orange kit. It was back and forth, and it ended in a draw.
“I remember the Saints game, there was more than one, but the earlier one [2014, 25-30 Northampton win]. It was always an event where the family will go ‘it’s the Big Game, we’re going’ kind of attitude.
“Everyone at school and the local rugby club was like ‘obviously we’re going to the Big Game’ and it is such an event. I am just happy it can happen this year.”
Baxter is joined in being a Big Game regular by Will Trenholm and Oscar Beard, the duo from his Academy class brought up on the same diet of Harlequins rugby before going full-time with the club.
It will not be the prop’s first time out on the turf at Twickenham. While still at school, Baxter played at the stadium in consecutive years in the RFU Nationals Schools Cup in the U15s competition.
Playing a year young in 2017, Baxter says he was “just happy to be there” as Wellington fell short to Sedbergh in the Cup final before returning a year later and bagging two tries against Warwick School to win the competition a year later.
Baxter laughs while recalling seeing Cadan Murley turning out for Bishop Wordsworth’s School in the U18s Cup Final in 2017, “he’s supposed to be really good” the whisper as the wing was unable to stop his side falling 27-5 at the hands of Warwick School.
“I was thinking about it during the week,” Baxter said when asked about this weekend, “thinking about the walk over, the changing room, obviously the bloody stadium, and the kit.
“It is all going to be a bit different, and I need to be ready for it, because you never really know how you. Are going to react to these kind of things.
“I don’t usually get really psyched up for a game or anything. I am just excited to see how it goes. I just can’t wait for it.”
Not a one dimensional prop
This season alone, Baxter has more than doubled his total appearances for Harlequins. Up to this point, we have only seen flurries of what the 21-year-old is capable of, but we always knew his stock was high.
Captaining England at age grade level is no mean feat and following his 80 minute Man of the Match performance against Racing 92 last December, Baxter warmed the hearts of many with his post-match interview on BT Sport.
A prop earmarked to have a big future ahead of him, you would have to think that Harlequins is the best possible place for him to be. Able to call Joe Marler and Will Collier his teammates, Baxter is coached by Wales and British and Irish Lions legend Adam Jones.
It was Jones, who after seeing Baxter make his debut as a tighthead prop, decided that the emerging talent’s future lay at loosehead. Moulding Baxter from then on in, there has been little looking back and in the years to come Harlequins are sure to reap the rewards.
“Not only are they pools of knowledge, they actively look to help to try and improve,” Baxter said of Marler, Jones and Collier.
Fin Baxter says that he hopes he will not be viewed as a 'one dimensional' player
©JMP for Harlequins
“You don’t just have to go and ask them questions, I do, pissing them off. They are actively looking out for you and stuff to work on. Which is such a help.
“For example, stuff I wouldn’t notice watching a session back. They pick something out and if they hadn’t of said that I wouldn’t of got it. It has been really helpful.”
Did It feel like a season to make a significant impact at 21?
“Kind of, but not just because of age or anything like that,” Baxter explained. “It was more just because I had played a few games the previous year. I thought I was progressing really well, and I just thought I was capable of playing in the Prem. I thought I was capable of really showing what I can do.
“That’s why I kind of thought this could be quite an important year, and I need to be ready for it really. I don’t like the whole age thing where you look at someone and say, ‘he should be playing by now’ and all this kind of stuff.
“It gets to a point where it’s like that, but for young boys I think they just need time to really show what they can do first, and then show it in the Prem.”
In the case of the former Wellington schoolboy, it is clear that he is very much a Harlequins prop. Converting from the back-row to the front-row in order to “definitely get in the team”, Baxter offers more than just a safe pair of shoulders at scrum time.
“I like to think that I work very hard and try and upskill in multiple areas, not just be ‘he’s good at scrummaging to play in the Prem therefore he can play’ kind of thing,” he said. “I don’t want to be that.
“I want to be able to have good ball skills, I want to be able to run good lines and make violent tackles and stuff like that. I don’t want to be a one dimensional player, and that takes a lot of practice and a lot of time and a lot of help from coaches.”
Scrummaging is an area in which he excels though. All the way back in October 2021, TRU saw Baxter in the flesh for the first time.
Coming off the bench in the final two minutes as Harlequins completed another of those otherworldly comebacks, with Baxter going toe-to-toe with former Quin Kyle Sinckler and nullifying the England international in the process.
Ask Baxter if he sets goals, and the front-row forward will answer honestly in saying he wants to represent the British and Irish Lions and England one day, although his main focus at present is establishing himself further in Tabai Matson’s matchday 23.
Close to getting a result
With six games left to play, the Premiership is on a knife’s edge. Just eight points separate fourth from ninth, every point vital as the push for the play-off intensifies and hoping to end a run of five losses in a row, for Harlequins it is a decisive point in their season.
Harlequins’ last outing was against Gloucester two weekends ago. Taking on the fourth-place club, it was a close affair as the West Country club won 28-26 at Kingsholm and sent Quins into a bye-week feeling as if they were close to cracking things.
“We are looking at every game as an individual,” Baxter said. “We know we are really close to getting a result, because we have put a few performances that don’t last the full 80, but the last the majority of the game, that don’t quite get us the result. I think we are very close to having a good enough performance to get the result.
“I think our work-rate, our intent, our willingness to pitch up has been there. That underpins our whole game. Those three aspects. We felt we’ve brought that to those five games. It is individual errors and a few big moments that haven’t really gone our way.
“Without those three, we can’t play how we play. We’ve had some nearly games, those were nearly games because our intent was there, but we couldn’t play our rugby for the full 80 minutes.”
To finish the season, Harlequins will be getting used to the big occasion. Over a month on from Big Game 14, the club will be returning to Twickenham in order to take on Bath in the second edition of the Big Summer Kick-Off, while their trip to Saracens will be staged at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Just as it was the season Harlequins upset the odds to lift silverware at Twickenham, the odds are stacked against the West Londoners and Baxter for one is along for the ride.
