Discipline almost cost us - Baxter

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter has said he will use the coming week to address discipline issues that arised during his side’s 33-31 victory over Gloucester in the Westcountry Challenge Cup on Saturday.

Although victorious for the third time in pre-season, the Chiefs conceded over 20 penalties at the Memorial Stadium and had both Julian Salvi and Damian Welch sent to the bin by the match officials for professional fouls.

Thankfully, a late penalty from replacement fly-half Will Hooley ensured the Chiefs saw off the Cherry & Whites, but it was the high penalty count that Baxter was keen to combat when he spoke at the final whistle.

“Obviously first and foremost we have to talk about the discipline,” said Baxter. “Two yellow cards and I think 21 penalties conceded was not acceptable. Today we didn’t do ourselves any favours with our discipline, particularly around the tackle area.

“Frustratingly for me was that we didn’t learn by it as the game went on. Once you have given up three or four, as players you have to wisen up a bit. Continually we got caught out putting our hands in areas where they shouldn’t be and we we’re gambling far too much around the breakdown area.

“A few of the penalties in the second half, in truth, were a little bit harsh, but by then the referee had decided we were being messy in there. Looking from the sidelines, it did look messy and didn’t look clean and we got penalised quite correctly for a lot of it.

“Giving away those soft penalties meant that it gave Gloucester a lot of field possession and I have to give credit to our forwards because we had to produce some fantastic five-metre maul defence at times. Ultimately, I think that may have won us the game, but when I look at how many penalties we gave away and some of the soft scores we conceded, there is plenty for us to go away and work on this week.”

Having been given a dream start thanks to converted tries from Thomas Waldrom and Luke Cowan-Dickie, Gloucester hit back strongly and went in at the break leading 21-20 after they stung the Chiefs with converted tries of their own from Matt Kvesic, Henry Purdy and Mark Atkinson.

Don Armand’s converted try early in the second half restored Exeter’s slender lead, but an action packed finale saw the lead change heads a number of times as Steve McColl’s touchdown gave Gloucester the lead once more, before Billy Twelvetrees and Hooley engaged in a kicking battle that was eventually won by the latter.

The victory ensured the Chiefs have already won the Westcountry Challenge Cup with a week to spare, but Baxter knows his team will have to be much improved ahead of Saturday’s final pre-season trip to Bath,

“There were areas and aspects of today that I was pleased with,” continued Baxter. “When we attacked we looked good and we carried well and gained some good momentum. However, it all became a bit fractured by us giving away too many penalties.

“As a team we know that on another day we could have been dead and buried and if you give away that many penalties and two yellow cards, you tend not to win too many games of rugby.

“I’m confident that a lot of the issues that have arisen today we can deal with pretty quickly. We’ll have a look at it all on video next week and we’ll discuss what we need to with the players.

“As I said, they will have to take responsibility for their actions, but I’ll take some as well because we did ask them to do a couple of things slightly different in attack that we wanted to try out for maybe later in the season. That has meant that training has been slightly different and that our fluency has not been quite what we want it to be, but the guys are mature enough to deal with all this and I expect them to be even stronger given another full week of training next week.”