Match Reaction - Rob Baxter
By Mark Stevens
20/2/22
Rob Baxter praised the character of his Exeter Chiefs side as they made it back-to-back victories in the Gallagher Premiership with a 15-14 win away to Newcastle Falcons.
A late Joe Simmonds penalty proved telling for the visitors, who bagged earlier tries through Patrick Schickerling and Jack Innard at Kingston Park.
The Falcons, however, would not go quietly and despite playing almost an hour of the game with 14 men following the dismissal of skipper Callum Chick, they threatened to cause an upset as they lead late on thanks to converted scores from Will Haydon-Wood and George McGuigan.
“It’s a massive win for us,” said Baxter post-match. “Any win away in the Premiership is one to treasure, but the big thing today is that we have come out on the right side of a close one at the end. There have been three or four times this season, including Newcastle at home, where we’ve been pipped at the post.
“I was sat there near the end thinking was it going to happen again, but in the end that last score came our way. As I said, I’m delighted for the boys because they’ve shown real character to win the game.
“We’re we good? Not particularly, but we showed a good attitude and energy about ourselves to come through.
“When we look back at the game, based on territory and possession over the course of the game, we probably deserved to win the game.The second half, though, wasn’t great and I’ve just said to the lads we will need to take a bit of ownership over some of the decision-making and some of the little things we did in the game.”
With the Chiefs line-out struggling at times, it was their scrum which dug them out at the death, securing the penalty that skipper Simmonds was able to dispatch with just over a minute remaining.
“Our line-out wasn’t great today, but equally other areas were good, including our scrum,” added Baxter. “We will go away and look at why that was, but the important thing is that if you can’t find one way to win a game, you find another way, and that’s what we did today.”
Next up for the Chiefs is Sunday’s trip to Northampton Saints, another fixture Baxter knows will provide a stiff challenge to his side.
“Reading the reports on their game yesterday, it seems they were a bit unfortunate to lose to Sale,” continued Baxter. “We’ve looked at them and we know they are looking strong, so it’s going to be another huge challenge for us. That said, we’re getting ready for huge challenges every week now!”
The Chiefs’ Director of Rugby will assess the fitness of both Josh Hodge and Jannes Kirsten over the coming week, but he was hopeful both should be fine after suffering head knocks in the game.