Plenty to work on, says Rob

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter says his side still need to iron out one or two disciplinary issues ahead of the new Aviva Premiership season.

The Chiefs maintained their unbeaten pre-season programme with a hard-fought 22-21 win over Ulster at the Kingspan Stadium, but Baxter knows further repeats of the on-field indiscretions on show in Belfast could well come back to haunt his team.

Forwards Jack Yeandle and Carl Rimmer were both shown yellow cards during the contest at the impressive Kingspan Stadium, but due to a pre-match agreement between both clubs - whereby those sin-binned would be immediately replaced - the numerical advantage did not come into play for the Irishmen.

Instead, the Chiefs valiantly battled back from 21-8 in the second half to claim the spoils thanks to late converted tries from Henry Slade and Matt Jess, who also raced over for a similar effort in the first half.

Former Ulster player Gareth Steenson kicked the remainder of Exeter’s points with a penalty and two conversions, whilst the home side replied with tries from Rory Scholes (2) and Louis Ludik, all of which were converted by former London Irish fly-half Iam Humphreys.

Afterwards, Baxter admitted he was pleased to see his side secure victory in Ireland, but said there were plenty of ‘work-ons’ for his players to do before their final pre-season friendly at Worcester Warriors next Friday (7.30pm).

Baxter said: “To go away from any first class side, especially coming over to Ireland and winning, is obviously fantastic and we’ve shown some good qualities. That said, I am a little frustrated with how we played at times, particularly in the first half.

“I thought we showed a lot more endeavour in the second half and we showed a few more of the qualities I like to think we have as a side. Toughing out a win like that over here is pleasing, but there are a few areas that we will need to sharpen up on over the next few weeks.

“Yes, we have come back at the end and got the win, but as I said to the guys, we did play twice with 15 men when really we should have been down a man. We shouldn’t underestimate the impact that may or may not have had on the game, but the fact we agreed to replace yellow cards certainly worked better for us than it did Ulster because we kept 15 guys on when really it should have been 14 for 20 minutes.”

Baxter continued: “I think our individual discipline was a bit of an issue for us tonight, it broke up our game and made it fractured.  I’ve made the points to the guys in the changing room just now, sometimes you have to take individual responsibility for your actions. At the moment there or two or three penalties too many in each half for my liking.

“At the moment we are doing some silly stuff out there and we have to get it out of our systems. I’m aware that

sometimes that will happen in pre-season, simply because the guys are eager and keen to impress, but it doesn’t impress me too much when they give away a stupid penalty.”

The Chiefs will round off their pre-season friendlies at Sixways in a game that will also serve as a testimonial for long-serving Warriors lock Craig Gillies, but Baxter says he will use the final run-out as the perfect opportunity to fine tune his team ahead of their seasonal opener away to London Welsh on September 7.

“We’ve one more week, which will see us have three or four days of training, and that will be it for us in terms of pre-season,” added Baxter. “Next week we’ll go to Worcester with a squad of 23-25 players and I’ll expect it to be up to Premiership standards by then.”