Exeter boss Rob Baxter says he is aiming to build a side that will be dominant for the next five years.

Baxter hopes to emulate the side that made six successive Premiership finals from 2016, and won a European title.

"I saw how a team grew together when we first grew a team that moved to the top of the Premiership," Baxter said.

"I'm very keen to do that again, I think we can, we've got to have some patience around it, it doesn't happen overnight.

"I think recruitment that tries to change things overnight is the recruitment that's doomed to failure and I'm very aware of that, and it's something I'm trying to avoid as much as I can.

"I want to make sure we go back to developing players with real growth and then what you can do when you grow that team is that allows you to maybe add that bit of stardust on top, as we have done in previous seasons when we've wanted to top off what the squad's doing."

Exeter's home-grown stars such as Sam Simmonds, Dave Ewers, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Jack Nowell are all set to leave this summer, while Stuart Hogg will retire and Harry Williams will move to France.

It comes after the likes of Sam Skinner, Jonny Hill and Tom O'Flaherty left last summer as a combination of the reduced salary cap and ageing players began to bite.

A new crop of young players - led by Wales youngsters Hawkins, Christ Tshiunza and Dafydd Jenkins - are being seen as the bedrock on which a new title-winning squad can be formed, as Exeter face a fight to return to the Premiership play-offs this season after missing out last year.

"I'm very fortunate, whether people agree or don't agree, I've managed to stay at the club and coaching in the Premiership and managing in the Premiership for a decent period of time," added Baxter.

"Across that period of time you see good teams, you see great teams come and go and great squads come and go.

"There's two things you can do recruitment-wise - you can do everything you can to just try and hang on and improve yourself for the next year, or you can actually go 'right, let's look at the bigger picture and what do we want within the group within the next three, four, five years?"