Exeter boss Rob Baxter says he has been impressed with how young Wales back-row Kane James is maturing.

The 21-year-old won his international first cap in July when Wales lost in Argentina in the Nations Championship.

James broke into the Exeter squad last season and has started both of the Chiefs’ Prem games so far this campaign.

“He’s just following that really nice route where he’s improving at a nice rate, he’s having some good impact on games,” Baxter said.

“Kane can be really pleased with the trajectory his game is going in at the minute.”

James’ physical development has also been noted by Baxter, who says the former England Under-20 player – who switched allegiance to the country he grew up in earlier this year – has been working hard off the field.

“He’s getting thicker, that will happen with quality training, making sure he gets his nutrition and all this kind of stuff,” Baxter added.

“He’s such a diligent guy he is going to maximise his strength and his growth, but he is going to get bigger for quite some time, I would say with Kane.

“That obviously is helping him ride the contact, he’s explosive and very quick.

“Kane’s had a really, really good start to the season, we’ve got to just keep working on these little individual bits and pieces – sometimes in his determination to fly around, a little bit of accuracy trips, but that’s the way you want it.

“You want these lads enthusiastic to run around and get in the game and I think there’s a lot more still to come from Kane.”

Having previously featured mainly as a number eight, James has started both of this season’s Prem matches for Exeter at open-side flanker.

Baxter says rather than any particular aim to change James’ role, the move is more about getting the best from the players he has available at this stage of the season.

“We’ve been a bit challenged in the back five of the scrum, so what we’ve been doing is selecting the best three to start the game and then putting them in the best combo onto the scrum as they are,” he explained.

“Where they really play around the field is a little bit irrelevant to the number on their back really, they’re scrummaging that way because that suits the strengths of each of them individually.

“We won’t have any problem picking Kane at number eight, as he’s been playing in other games, when a rotation happens or injuries or that’s the best formulation for that game.

“I’ve never been a big one for this ‘numbers on backs dictates what player you are’ – Kane plays like a number eight outside of the scrum for us in that he gets on the ball and he plays the kind of plus-one roles at line-out, so he very much plays what they call that kind of hybrid role for us.”