Injured Exeter winger Ridl to miss most of season

Ridl was hurt as he slowed down to get a pass away in Exeter's opening pre-season game, rather than being injured in contact. He tried to play on but was forced to come off the field a few minutes after being hurt.

It is a blow for a player who was seen as one of the brightest prospects in English rugby last season.

He scored back-to-back hat-tricks in Prem Rugby Cup games in February and notched six tries in six Prem games between mid-March and mid-May.

"There's never a good time to have a serious injury," added Baxter.

"But having it at a time when he's played his first decent amount of adult rugby in a proper, tough, long season... now he's got that opportunity to really work on his physical development because obviously the challenges of being ready to play games every weekend are not going to be there.

"There's a good deal of physical development he'll be able to do while he's recovering from injury.

"He's also at university and deep in studies, so you've got to try to look at the positives of these things.

"If it gives him a period of really good development, getting on top of university studies, getting things really in line for next season then you've got to try and look at this as part of the development process he's going to go through over the next five or six years of his career."