Baxter 'pleased' with win

Pictures: Exeter Rugby Club/Pinnacle Photo Agency

 

Mark Stevens at Parc Y Scarlets

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter praised his side’s “attitude and commitment” as they kicked off their pre-season programme with a 23-15 victory over Scarlets at Parc Y Scarlets.

In the first of three pre-season tests ahead of their seasonal opener at Northampton Saints on September 7, Baxter would certainly have been satisfied as his side brushed aside the Welsh region.

Tries from Damian Welch and Will Carrick-Smith (pictured), coupled with kicks from Gareth Steenson and Henry Slade, sealed a workmanlike success for the Aviva Premiership outfit who last season twice overcame the Scarlets in the prestigious Heineken Cup.

"First and foremost we've come out of a hard fought game with a decent victory and feeling pretty good about quite a few things in our play," said Baxter afterwards. "I think unfortunately for ourselves and the Scarlets, conditions dictated that we had to adapt our game somewhat. We probably had to do a bit more kicking, chasing and defending rather than play any multi-phase stuff, so that's a bit of a shame.

"At the same time, it does test other parts of your game and for large parts I was pretty pleased with how we went. Of course there are things that we will need to work on over the next few weeks, but for a first outing I think we can be relatively happy with how we went about things."

Baxter added: "For me pre-season is always a big test of attitude and commitment and I thought we showed that pretty well. We were physical in the contact and tackle area; we kept the ball well and in the end we scored a decent amount of points to win the game.

"We've also come out of the game with no major injuries, the only concern is Stu Townsend who has picked up a slight hamstring niggle, but other than that we've come through well and now we'll take stock of things and get ready for next week against Bristol and then Glasgow the week after."

As expected, Baxter took the opportunity to give a large number of his first team squad some much-needed game time – and they did not disappoint as they produced a workmanlike display to overcome their Welsh hosts.

And among those who did feature were England Under-20s trio Slade, Sam Hill and Luke Cowan-Dickie (pictured). Together with Jack Nowell and Joel Conlon, the trio were part of England’s Junior World Championship winning side this summer and Baxter is expecting big things this term from the highly-rated youngsters.

“Our senior squad has got a good amount of young talent in there now,” continued Baxter. “Our average age has come down considerably in the last season or two and that is good for the club moving first.

“As I said, for a first run-out in pre-season to come to Llanelli and record a decent win – in what was pretty difficult conditions – is very positive for us. The young lads within the squad did very well when they came on in the second half and we’ll expect more of the same as the season goes on from them,

“Likewise, the senior guys also put in a pretty decent shift and over the next week or two we’ll just look to focus on certain things and make sure we’re fully firing come the start of the season.”

With Championship side Bristol next up at Sandy Park this Saturday, quickly followed by another home engagement against Glasgow Warriors the following week, Baxter expects things to crank up another notch.

He added: “Everything will become a little bit tougher because we’ve all have a game or two under our belts. Bristol will have had a game under their belts, Glasgow a week later will have had two like us, so we’ll narrow down our focus of what we want to get from those games.

“We won’t probably get as much game minutes into people as we did today and we’ll focus training more on specific areas, but what I guess we’ll look for most is a few less errors in our play and look to sharpen up on a few key areas within our game.”