'Lessons will be learnt' - Baxter
By Mark Stevens
28/9/19
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter insisted lessons would be learnt in the aftermath of his side’s 27-7 loss to Leicester Tigers in the Premiership Rugby Cup.
Having kicked off their season with victory over Bath the previous week, the youthful Chiefs were brought back down to earth with a bang at Welford Road.
Guy Thompson’s early score gave the home side a dream start, only for the Chiefs to hit back with a converted score through debutant Jacques Vermeulen.
Further tries from Jordon Olowofela and Jonah Holmes gave the Tigers - who had been well beaten 57-23 at Worcester Warriors the week previous - some much-needed breathing space, before they wrapped things up in the last five minutes, claiming a bonus point score through centre Kyle Eastmond.
Reflecting on his side’s performance, Baxter said post-game: “I’m a little disappointed, but I’m also aware where we made our mistakes. We gave up a real soft try at the start but, to be fair, we fought really well after that. It was a one score game for much of the game, probably until the last five minutes where it got away from us, so those fighting qualities shown after a disappointing start I’m pleased with.
“I’m also pleased that it’s a bit of a slap in the face for us, just because sometimes you need one - particularly the younger guys who need that little sharp awakener to remind them as to why we do some of the things we do, and why we drive them so hard in some areas, because when push comes to shove and collectively you need to perform, it’s those little things that really matter.
“That kind of got highlighted to me over and over again today. Sometimes it’s little things like your talk in defence, how you get set early, how you work together as a backline in defence and how we work together to get tempo and movement into our game. As I’ve just said to the guys in the changing room, we will get better at all of those things, but for some of these players that only comes from having experiences like tonight and taking on some tough lessons.”
With the Tigers desperate to rediscover their winning formula - Friday’s success was only their fourth win in 2019 - it was a much experienced home line-up that took to the field for the visit of the Chiefs. However, Baxter felt his young outfit coped well for decent periods of the game.
“You never come to Welford Road expecting to win, you come here expecting to fight hard to try and win.” Said Baxter. “We weren’t good enough tonight - and I’m not going to try and gloss over that - but I’m not going to get down and negative because I know that group have worked incredibly hard through pre-season and again today. They have put in a good showing, it’s a tough place to come, Leicester had a lot to play for, but we’ve not been at our best, so we have to get our heads together and show our best next time.”
Although the Chiefs scrum looked solid enough for large parts of the game, the visiting line-out was not quite at the same level and it allowed the Tigers to stave off Exeter pressure with relative ease.
“I think if our line-out had functioned a little better, there would have been multiple pressure in the game for us,” added Baxter. “Instead, it really pressure on Leicester over and over again. There are reasons for that. We had a guy who turned up only 10 days ago in Jacques. Jannes [Kirsten] has only played one game for us, and there were a couple of other guys in there who were making their first appearances of the season, so there are reasons for a little bit of hesitancy in there.We’ll take it on the chin, move forward and now look to get more game time into a different group of players over these next two weeks.”