Chiefs side to face Irish
By Mark Stevens
22/20/21
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby, Rob Baxter, believes he has a squad of players determined to make up for the heartache of last season’s Gallagher Premiership final defeat to Harlequins.
After a stuttering opening fortnight to the new season, the Chiefs have hit back in style, recording successive victories over Sale Sharks, Worcester Warriors and Wasps to move into the top four of the division.
Tomorrow, Baxter will be looking for more of the same from his charges, who play host to London Irish in Round Six at Sandy Park (3pm).
It’s a fixture the Chiefs leader and his players are clearly relishing, particularly given their recent form, which has been aided by the return of a number of their senior stars following injury and unavailability.
“It’s like anything, you get a split in people’s thinking on most things,” said Baxter. “In the wake of last season, we had that. Not that it was a divided group, but more so a different way of thinking, like two sides of a coin so to speak. You had the one group who were really annoyed with how things panned out last season - and we had another group who thought we did ok and just lost a final.
“When you have a situation like that, it’s which group gains most momentum which often decides which way you go as a club. I think what you’ve seen from us over this past month is the group of players who are saying: ‘we are going to change things; we’re going to be different; we’re going to set high standards and we’re going to drive this club forward; that is the momentum and thinking that is driving us through the here and now.
“As a group, we have to ride that wave of being a bit disgruntled by the end of last season - and that is beyond just the final, you can’t wrap it up in one result at the end of the season - it’s more about the way we played and the way we were. That is what I want to keep driving this season because that will be the key to any success we have.”
Whatever is being said and done, it’s clearly having the desired effect as the Chiefs have rediscovered their winning formula, producing some notable displays along the way.
Baxter, though, insists it will be following tomorrow’s clash that he will truly be able to gauge where his side currently rank in the grand scheme of things.
“How we’re doing will largely depend on this weekend,” added Baxter. “Obviously, we were disappointed to lose at home to Northampton and we don’t want that to happen again. Since then, we’ve done well away from home and we beat Worcester here. It’s this weekend’s game that will say if we are on target or behind target of where we wantto be.
“It doesn’t take a genius to work out over 22 games that to get into that top four you need to have 65-70 points onwards. To get into the top two, you probably need high 70s, early 80s. Now, if you add two more games into it, that figure rises again. That means after this weekend, a quarter of the season has already gone, so if we have 19 or 20 points we’re kind of on target, but if we have only 15 points, then we’ll need to improve a little bit.”
Not that the Chiefs will need to tinker too much with their current plan. Buoyed by their 27-23 win over Wasps last time out, Baxter sees little reason to tinker too much with his playing personnel.
In the pack, Jack Yeandle comes in for the stricken Luke Cowan-Dickie (ankle); Ben Moon and Sam Nixon pack down either side of him; while there are also starts for Will Witty and Sam Skinner. Behind, Joe Simmonds - fresh from collecting his MBE earlier this week - returns to the No.10 jersey, while Tom O’Flaherty gets the nod over Facundo Cordero on the wing.
Again, it’s a powerful array of talent on show from the Chiefs, who Baxter hopes can pick up from where they left off against Wasps a week ago.
“Last week kind of had the good and bad of us,” he continued. “I’ll start with the bad, which was that 12 minute period just before half time. That was disappointing, especially as we had done so well in the period before that. We had done a lot of what we wanted to do, created tries and had what you’d call that golden period, where we were driving intensity and really taking the game to Wasps.
“But then, we had that 12 minute period where we shut down a bit, both physically and mentally. That was one of the issues that reared its head a little bit last season, where we got comfortable and we’re happy to take a mental breather. At this level, you can’t afford to do that and Wasps duly punished us for it.
“What we acknowledged at half time was how to put that right and for much of the second half, it was us who controlled the game. It took a bit of time, especially in that period just after the break where we were battering away at them and not getting any reward, but the key was that the guys didn’t drop their heads and think it wasn’t go to be their day. Instead, they just got on with things, kept working hard, and that’s when we got our rewards later on.
“That shows we have something about us and that is what we will need again this weekend against a London Irish side, who themselves have fought back in games this season and taken teams right to the wire.”
