Chiefs side to face Bath

By Mark Stevens

Head coach Rob Baxter says he will use tomorrow’s final Westcountry Challenge Cup fixture at Bath as the ideal opportunity to fine tune his Exeter Chiefs squad ahead of the new 2015/16 season.

Having already collected three pre-season wins over Gloucester (home and away) and Bath at home, Baxter knows this latest encounter at the Recreation Ground (5:45pm) offers the final chance for his players to stake their claims ahead of the big kick-off.

With Bath also providing the opposition for Exeter’s opening Aviva Premiership game of the season next week, some may feel neither club will want to show their hand too much with such an important fixture looming large on the horizon.

However, Baxter feels preparations inside the Chiefs camp too date have gone well and that the work done over the past few months has not only been geared to this weekend and next, but for much further down the line as well as Exeter look to attack in both the Premiership and Champions Cup.

“We’ll concentrate on ourselves predominantly and try not to be too clever about the way we do things,” explained Baxter. “We could easily get carried away about playing Bath this weekend and Bath again next weekend, but the reality is we have to look at things in the future as well.

“We haven’t set our pre-season up just to ensure we only do well against Bath, what we have to remember is that this season is going to pretty full on and that we have to be ready for a Premiership game next, the week after, the week after and so on, before then getting ready to start what will be another big Champions Cup campaign for us.

“If you look at previous Premiership years, we’ve tended to start them well because we have put in place a structure that has allowed us to plan ahead, get game minutes into the right guys and have our defence and attacking systems in place early on.

“Because this pre-season has been a bit different we’ve had to tweak the odd bit here and there, but at the same time we’ve tried to stick to the same process that has served us so well during our time in the Premiership. We don’t therefore want to jeopardise that by changing things, simply because it’s a different scenario and we’re playing Bath back to back first up.

“The truth is in the Champions Cup you have to play back to back games and you have to deal with it, so therefore this week and next week is no different to that. As I said, we’ll try not to be too clever about things and stick to what we know works.”

Bath showed last season that they are one of the Premiership’s leading lights, eventually losing to Saracens in the Premiership Final in May, and they are expected to again be amongst the frontrunners this term.

Baxter acknowledges it will be a much different Bath side on show tomorrow to that which his side faced a few weeks ago at Sandy Park, but says it should provide a decent test for his squad in their final pre-season run-out.

“Games between ourselves and Bath over the years, no matter what competition we are playing in, are always great occasions,” added Baxter. “Quite often there isn’t a great deal to choose between either side and I’ve no doubt it will be the same over these next two weeks.

“Also it’s great for our supporters to go up to the Rec and have what is effectively a derby encounter. I know Bath may not quite see it as a derby for them, simply because of some of the other sides around them, but there is still plenty to play for and I’m expecting another cracking game.”

Ahead of kick-off Baxter has made three changes to his starting XV from that which took to the field against Gloucester in Bristol last weekend. Alex Brown comes in at tight-head for Moray Low; Dave Ewers returns in the back-row at the expense of Julian Salvi; while Matt Jess (pictured) is given the nod on the wing over former Bath player Olly Woodburn.

With the rest of the personnel unchanged, Baxter will be hoping for a much more disciplined display from his players, who last weekend conceded over 20 penalties and two yellow cards at the Memorial Stadium.

“The big issue for us last week was our lack of individual discipline, particularly around the breakdown area, which in turn  created a fractured game for us,” explained Baxter. “There were things we weren’t happy with last week, but there were also things that we were happy with.

“In some ways it was a mixed bag of sorts, but that is what pre-season is all about and looking back at it, the positives far outweighed the negatives. And probably the biggest positive was how clinical we were last week. Looking at the video, pretty much every try-scoring opportunity we created, we scored, so that was fantastic and so was some our defensive work at times.

‘This week it’s just a case of cutting out those individual discipline issues, which I’m confident we will do, and focusing fully on the good things that I know we do.”

EXETER CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE BATH

15 Phil Dollman

14 Matt Jess

13 Ian Whitten

12 Sam Hill

11 James Short

10 Gareth Steenson (capt)

9 Will Chudley

1 Ben Moon

2 Luke Cowan-Dickie

3 Alex Brown

4 Mitch Lees

5 Damian Welch

6 Dave Ewers

7 Don Armand

8 Thomas Waldrom


Replacements

16 Jack Yeandle

17 Alex Hepburn

18 Moray Low

19 Ollie Atkins

20 Julian Salvi

21 Dave Lewis

22 Will Hooley

23 Max Bodilly

24 Brett Sturges

25 Shaun Malton

26 Harry Williams

27 Tom Johnson

28 Ben White

29 Kai Horstmann

30 Haydn Thomas

31 Olly Woodburn

32 Byron McGuigan