Away-day win pleases Baxter

By Mark Stevens
21/2/16

Rob Baxter hailed his Exeter Chiefs side as they returned to winning ways in the Aviva Premiership with a 22-15 victory over lowly London Irish at the Madejski Stadium.

Following back-to-back losses against Saracens and Sale Sharks, a strong second half display from the Devonians saw them overturn a 7-6 deficit at the break to record their ninth league win of the campaign.

Replacement Dave Lewis claimed Exeter’s only try of the game, while fly-half Gareth Steenson weighed in with 17 points courtesy of a conversion and five penalties.

Irish, who remained rooted to the foot of the table, countered with a try apiece from Ofisa Treviranus and Topsy Ojo, plus five points from Theo Brophy Clews. However, it was never enough and they were left to rue yellow cards for David Paice and Ian Nagle at key moments in the game.

Post-match, Baxter admitted his side’s latest success was “massively important” and just the tonic they craved after two tough weekends.

“Sometimes, especially this time of year, the most important quality you can show is that you can find a way to win and I think we did that very well today,” said Baxter. “Ultimately our driving game and our scrum were very strong, our bench made a fantastic impact and we battled to what is a very important win.

“The truth is these games are getting tougher and tougher and tougher and there is no team in the Premiership falling over is there? Newcastle have picked up another positive result today, Worcester won yesterday and until today, London Irish have won their last three at home, so you are not going to expect teams to fall over in front of you.

“The good thing for us is we didn’t get too worried by that fact and although it was close at half time, we had actually played a fair bit and not got the reward for it. I think it showed we were prepared to battle it out and moments like Don Armand’s chase back, almost the length of the field, to make sure it’s a tough conversion are some of those things.

“For me, they are qualities that a team who are willing to stand up and fight will show. That is why we have come through in the end.”

Although the Chiefs huffed and puffed in the first half, it was not until the second half that they began to really show their strengths, particularly up front where the front five were rock solid at scrum time.

Baxter was also less than impressed with Irish’s attempts to kill the tempo of the game at every opportunity.

He continued: “I’ll tell you the truth, when I see a team who are desperately trying to take the tempo out of a game right from the first kick-off, I tend to think we are going to do pretty well. One thing with London Irish today, they tried to take every bit of tempo out of the game. They even had a guy trying to stop the ball boys giving the ball to our hookers.

“That kind of off the pitch antics to try and take the sting out of the game and take tempo out is fine - and it did create a stop-start game, which if it suits London Irish is also fine. But ultimately I kind of thing a team are a little bit worried about us if all they want to do is stop us playing and stop our tempo.

“Ultimately that often creates positive results for us because as a team we know what the opposition are trying to do, but it strengthens how we feel about what we are trying to achieve in the game.”

Exeter’s latest win means they will return to Sandy Park next Sunday for a mouth-watering derby encounter against Bath.

“It was massively important to get the win,” continued Baxter. “If you get into the top four you have got to keep collecting points each week. Everybody can see there is a mid-table group forming and they are all closing up on the top pretty fast.

“Just looking at things, a couple of results either way and things are going to change pretty quickly. We are really pleased because the truth is we came here last season and didn’t win. We lost late in the game, and you could wrap it up as one of the reasons we didn’t get in  the top four, so every time we can knock one of these games off, it shows a very positive movement for us.”