Baxter relishing last four clash

By Mark Stevens
7/5/17

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter said the prospect of a home semi-final against reigning Premiership champions Saracens was ‘fantastic’.

The match will take place at Sandy Park on Saturday, May 20, with a 2.30 pm kick-off, in a repeat of last year’s Twickenham final, which Sarries won 28-20.

“Everyone knows how good Saracens are and we could be potentially playing the best side in Europe in a home semi-final,” said Baxter. “I’m really pleased we have two weeks to prepare for it. We need it as we have boys bumped and bruised.

“We will have players back, which is fantastic as well and it will make training on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday a bit spicy because the guys will want to lay down some markers to get into that semi-final team.”

Talking about the win over Gloucester, Baxter added: “It was a tough old game, and it was a bit emotional at times. It was a real ding-dong battle for a large part, and then we just managed to get hold of it a bit more than Gloucester.

“Great credit to Gloucester, I thought they came out with a lot of intensity and a lot of emotion, and with some really good line speed, and that stopped us playing a fair bit, and we again gave up some relatively soft points, as has been our norm a little bit, but at half-time we had some good foundations.

“Ali (Hepher, assistant coach) tinkered a little bit with our tactical plan, which worked very effectively after the break, when we started sniping down the blindside and started getting good metres down there, and that gave us a lot of momentum and allowed us to get more of a toehold in the game and eventually take a grip of it.

“You have got to give the players great credit. We worked exceptionally hard in the first half in a very, very competitive game, and we managed to accelerate into the second half.”

The Chiefs missed out on top to Wasps, who overcame third-placed Saracens in their clash at the Ricoh Arena, a game which also kicked off 15 minutes later on safety grounds.

Asked post-match by the media if he felt some skullduggery tactics had been employed up the road, Baxter played down the whole thing insisting public safety had to come first and foremost.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Baxter shrugged. “If you’re playing a really good team – as Wasps were against Saracens – you are going to be taking points whenever you can to guarantee a win and a home semi-final.

“If it helped them it helped them but it’s not something for me to be concerned about. These things happen. We had a delayed kick-off at Sandy Park a couple of weeks ago [against Bristol]. And if we had been at Sandy Park today and we had had trouble I would have expected the game to be delayed. We came here and did what we could do and got a five-point win. And they did what they could do and got a five-point win. I’ve got no problem with it.”

Instead, Exeter’s head coach preferred to look ahead to a mouth-watering semi-final and, hopefully, a return to Twickenham and the chance to go one stage further than 12 months ago.

Can they go one better and complete the fairytale?

“We’re automatically better prepared this season because we’ve been there before as a group,” Baxter said.

Only time will tell just how well prepared the Chiefs truly are.