Quick start delights Baxter

By Mark Stevens

Rob Baxter believes his side’s lightning start provided the ideal platform for the Exeter Chiefs to stay top of the pile in Pool Two of this season’s European Challenge Cup

Tries from skipper Kai Horstmann and hooker Greg Bateman inside the opening six minutes set the tone for another hugely impressive display from the Westcountry club as they dispatched visiting La Rochelle 41-17.

Tongan winger Fetu’u Vainikolo added try number three before the all-important bonus point was secured just before the break courtesy of a penalty try.

There was to be no let-up after the break as Tom James and Adam Hughes added further tries, both of which were converted by fly-half Ceri Sweeney, who finished the contest with 11 points to his name.

La Rochelle - to their credit - offered a decent enough resistance and were rewarded with converted tries from Julien Berger and Arthur Cestaro, but it was scant reward in an often one-sided encounter.

Exeter’s victory means they lead Pool Two by two points from Connacht, who themselves recorded back-to-back wins against French opposition, the Irish province claiming a narrow 29-27 success at Bayonne on Saturday.

The two clubs are due to meet next month in Galway in what is a potential pool decider at The Sportsground and Baxter is aware of the challenge this lies ahead.

He said: “As things stand it’s shaping up that our away trip to Connacht will be very important in terms of the pool. We then have Bayonne at home where we would hope and expect to do well, so it’s going to be interesting.

“Connacht will know there is an opportunity for them to qualify and likewise we know it’s a great opportunity for us as well, so I think it will be one of those trips that will be well worth making for our supporters.”

Certainly the Chiefs gave the 9,000-strong crowd at Sandy Park at the weekend plenty to shout about as they recorded their eighth successive victory in all competitions.

“It was always going to be about the attitude and commitment we brought at the start of the game and we had that in spades,” said Baxter. “You could see that by the way we carried the ball and our line-speed in defence and our collisions were fantastic.

“I wasn’t expecting to have the bonus point in the bag by half-time, but I thought the guys did exceptionally well to create those opportunities and drive them home, then it was about setting ourselves different challenges in the second half and on the whole we met those.”

With such a stunning start to the game for his side, Baxter was delighted to see how his players kicked on throughout the contest to produce another solid result for the Devon club.

“You never know whether it’s good or it’s bad (to score so early), whether it dents your attitude in terms of how hard or easy the game’s going to be, but to be fair it was a good start and we followed it up.” added the Chiefs coach.

“It was a thoroughly professional job, we’ve got the five points, we got all we could out of the game, but now we’ve got to hit the re-set button very quickly because we have an important month coming up that’s ultimately going to decide how the season is going to pan out for us.”

And next up for the Chiefs is Friday’s Premiership trip to Sale Sharks, quickly followed by their post-Christmas encounter away to local rivals Bath at the Recreation Ground.

But as Baxter was quick to highlight, his team will travel with confidence to both games. He continued: “We’re going into Friday on good form, that’s eight wins on the bounce now, and you want to be winning and improving whilst you are winning. Right now I think we are getting a lot of things right.

“Next week will be a big challenge as Sale are a good side and they have been performing well themselves. We will prepare well on Monday as it’s a short turnaround week and we will give it everything we have got because right now we look an ambitious and enthusiastic side.”