Chiefs side to face London Wasps

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter says he is expects to see a response from his side when they face London Wasps in their first home Aviva Premiership game of the season at Sandy Park tomorrow (3pm).

In what was a disappointing opening day for the Devon club, the Chiefs suffered a 38-11 loss to Northampton Saints at Franklin's Gardens.

It was the first time Baxter's side had experienced a loss first up in the top flight - and the Chiefs leader says a week of hard work on the training field, together with some detailed analysis should have been sufficient to put things right this weekend.

"If anything it's been easier preparing the guys this week," said Baxter. "Simply because the truth is an under-performance often concentrates the mind a little bit more. For us, we've had a really good training week and we've looked to move on straight away.

"We don't get too panicky if we win or lose because the thing about the Premiership is that one thing you can guarantee is that at some stage you will lose games of rugby. Going away and losing at Northampton is by no means a big disgrace, what we are disappointed in is that we didn't do ourselves justice in the first half, and that's taken nothing away from Northampton because they were better than us on the day and we just have to accept that.

"All we have to do is improve our level of performance and make sure we're better the week after. We have kind of done that the time we have been in the Premiership - and we'll make sure we concentrate on doing that now."

In a powerful first half display from the Saints, the shell-shocked Chiefs found themselves 31-6 down at the break as they conceded four tries in 36 minutes. The second half was, as expected, a much improved showing and Baxter wants to use that as his foundation for the visit of the Londoners, who themselves went down 16-15 in their first fixture to Harlequins at Twickenham.

"We need to make sure we take the game to them and make the game a little bit more about ourselves," he said. "We failed to do that at the weekend for various reasons and it is obviously my job and the coaches' job to make sure we do. We are not suddenly sitting here thinking everything is going wrong because we lost to Northampton – it doesn't work like that.

"We know we are a good Premiership side that has had a poor game – that just about sums it up – but we need to make this weekend a lot more about us and what we want to do and that is how you tend to get performances and results. We need to narrow our focus down, make sure we are happy with the team we select, the way we train and go from there."

Never one to tinker too much, Baxter has stuck largely with the same personnel on duty last weekend. The sole change to the starting line-up sees England Under-20s star Sam Hill (pictured) come into the centre for his first-ever Premiership start with Ian Whitten moving to the wing at the expense of Matt Jess. In turn Jess drops to the bench to fill the void left by Hill, whilst Welsh international Craig Mitchell is preferred to Carl Rimmer as one of the two options at prop on the bench.

For all 23 players tomorrow offers them the chance to get the Chiefs firmly back on track and Baxter admits there is a sense of pressure on everyone to go out and deliver a big performance at Sandy Park.

"It would be foolish to say it hasn't added a little bit more pressure because we don't have any points but, at the same time, it is one game into the season and the most points we have ever got at Northampton is one and we've still gone on to finish fifth of sixth in the Premiership," he said. "The reality therefore is we are only a point down so far on our best-ever season so it is not like it is beyond recovery.

"In the bigger picture, to be a point down on where we have been in other years is not the end of the world.

"An opening-day defeat is only what you let it be," he continued. "If we were sitting in the dressing room saying that we had lost our first game so we were going to have a bad season, that would be a pretty poor attitude to take.

"I would like to think we will look at it by asking what we can learn from it and going from there. Sometimes it can drive the rest of the season and become a real positive for you."

Tickets for tomorrow's game are available through the Chiefs official website or through the Trading Post, which is open from 10am to 4pm.


CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE LONDON WASPS

15 Phil Dollman
14 Ian Whitten
13 Sam Hill
12 Jason Shoemark
11 Tom James
10 Gareth Steenson
9 Haydn Thomas
1 Brett Sturgess
2 Jack Yeandle
3 Hoani Tui
4 Dean Mumm (capt)
5 Damian Welch
6 Tom Johnson
7 James Scaysbrook
8 Dave Ewers

16 Chris Whitehead
17 Ben Moon
18 Craig Mitchell
19 Tom Hayes
20 Ben White
21 Dave Lewis
22 Henry Slade
23 Matt Jess