No complaints from Baxter
By Mark Stevens
11/12/17
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter had few complaints after watching his side slip to a first European Champions Cup defeat of the season at home to Leinster on Sunday.
The Irish province produced an impressive display to not only secure an 18-8 victory, which keeps them firmly at the top of Pool 3 with a 100% record, but it also condemned the Chiefs to a first defeat at Sandy Park in a year.
Tries from Johnny Sexton and Jack Conan were the highlights for the visitors, whose remaining points came from the boot of Sexton and skipper Isa Nacewa.
The Chiefs countered with a first half penalty from Gareth Steenson, plus a superb second half try from James Short, but it was never enough as the three-time European champions headed home with the points.
Post-match, a pragmatic Baxter gave an honest assessment of his side's showing, saying: "I've got no complaints about the result, Leinster came here and did very well. They potentially played better than we did and deserved the scores they got. When we win games, I like to think its because we deserve it and tonight we probably got the result we deserved.
"The challenge this week is to now try and improve our performance, more than Leinster can improve their performance. We are not in any doubt we can play better than that, just purely through catching and kicking the ball better, and alongside a couple of other things around the set-piece and a couple of things around our five-metre pressure, I’m pretty comfortable.
"I don’t think it was a lack of effort or trying from the boys, but I do think we could be a bit directed in what we do and obviously we can be a lot more accurate in what we do."
Leinster's greater experience and streetwise approach proved the key difference in an absorbing contest in which both sides threw everything at one another.
The Chiefs had their chances, particularly at the end of the first half and the start of the second, but they found themselves met by a resolute Leinster defence, who appeared hellbent on keeping their line in tact.
"If we don’t convert, we don’t convert, that’s the nature of the game sometimes, a good defence can stop you," said Baxter. "Leinster did that a couple of times during the game. What I was more frustrated about was that after a couple of pick-and-goes close to their line, next time we got some pressure we wanted to pass the ball away from rucks.
"That’s the bit we have to fight against. That's that bit where we kind of thought it didn’t work last time, so it won't work this time and we have to get away from that kind of mentality. If you look at the game, the same happened to Leinster, but they didn’t over-react. They were certain about what they wanted to do and they kept ball for multiple phases and ended up scoring. We are often capable of doing that, but today we slipped off that a bit early."
Such experiences, however, are what have helped to mould the Chiefs in recent seasons and Baxter says lessons will be learnt from the weekend moving forward.
"Although we have won Premiership final and we got to another, the European thing is still is a big learn for us," said Baxter. "To go and win the first two European games this season is a step forward for us.
"Today we were very competitive for long periods and anyone who watched that game, especially when it was 8-8 in the second half, knew that the game was there for one of the teams to take hold of it by the scruff of the neck. Rather than us do that, we let Leinster do it. Partly that came through good play by them and partly it was by us doing some pretty basic errors.
"If we're being honest, some of those errors were pretty disappointing and they can really hurt you when you are under pressure and in a tight game like tonight. As I said, I've no complaints about the result. What I look at now is we have a fantastic challenge to look forward to next week over in Dublin and if we can go over there, get a 4-0 win, just as Leinster have done here, everything is back on for us. To come out of this two games with par would be pretty good for us and that’s what we are going to target."