Baxter has few complaints

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter admitted he had few complaints after seeing his side slip to a 22-6 defeat to Harlequins in Big Game 6 at Twickenham.

In a torrid first half for the the Chiefs, they found themselves 19-3 down at the break as the hosts ran in tries from Nick Evans, Charlie Walker and Mike Brown, two of which were converted.

The Chiefs countered with a penalty in each half from Gareth Steenson, but another Evans three-pointer during the second period left Baxter's men with too much to do in front of a crowd of just over 74,000 at Twickenham.

It meant yet more heartache for the Chiefs who have now failed to win in five visits to English Rugby HQ, a run stretching back to 2002 in the old Powergen Shield.

"I haven't got too many complaints about the result," said Baxter at the final whistle. "I thought Harlequins not only got a lot more right than we did on the day, but they dealt with the whole situation better than we did.

"I was impressed with the intensity and the intent they brought to the opening period and that knocked us out of our stride a little bit. By the time we got ourselves into it, we were 19-3 down, and then we made a bit of a fight of it, and though we were not perfect, we at least stopped missing as many tackles as we had been doing and had a bit more of a physical attitude about ourselves.

"We are a little disappointed we didn’t turn up and fire a few more shots, but sometimes you have got to wrap the day up as another step on the experience ladder of where you want to end up as a team.

"We have got to be better in the way we turn up and hit the pitch in the first couple of minutes if we really want to be competitive in a game like today. Harlequins have been involved in these big games at Twickenham a few times now, which obviously helps, and we haven’t."

Baxter added: "Our first passage of play in the game was actually quite good, but then we threw a loose offload, which was a nothing decision, and that kind of stuck in with us for a little while.

"One thing I won’t criticise the players for is a lack of wanting to win the game. Often mistakes and bad decisions happen because you are very desperate to play very well and win the game.

"What you have to do to improve as a player is to learn how to channel that, and I don’t think we did that individually very well for the team outcome today.

"I don’t think the team benefitted from the way we played as individuals, and that is normally our strength, but we saw a fair bit more of that in the second half.

"We created enough pressure moments in that second half to maybe force that losing bonus point, which ultimately would have been a nice reward for us after that first-half performance, but even then we were wracked with a bit of indecision or poor decision-making.

"The reality was there were ten points there for us to take today that we didn’t put on the scoreboard.

"To stop Harlequins getting a bonus-point try in the second half is not the worst outcome for us because they are still a very close challenger with us in where we stand in the league."

Next up for the Chiefs is the forthcoming trip to London Wasps this Sunday (4pm) and the hope of starting 2014 with a bang.