Away-day win delights Baxter
By Mark Stevens
18/11/18
Rob Baxter praised his side’s fighting spirit as they maintained their position at the top of the Gallagher Premiership with a last-gasp win away to Bristol Bears.
A penalty try, three minutes into added on time, enabled Exeter Chiefs to emerge victorious 31-29 from their derby encounter at Ashton Gate.
In a full-blooded Westcountry showdown, the Bears appeared to be on course to claim a famous scalp as tries from Charles Piutau and Luke Morahan, plus 19 points from the boot of Callum Sheedy, put them in prime position.
The Chiefs, though, showed a defiant edge to their play and although they trailed 24-12 at one stage in the second period, they dug deep to make it seven wins from as many games courtesy of touchdowns from Moray Low, Tom Lawday, Santiago Cordero and skipper Jack Yeandle.
“I’m very pleased,” said Exeter’s Director of Rugby at the final whistle. “The biggest compliment I can pay Bristol is we are are delighted to win. I can understand the disappointment from their side, but I’ve been in and around rugby for a long time and I know how hard it can be, but we’ve had the same happen to us as well.
“I’d rather not reflect on that too much, but more flick it over to our side and praise the work of our guys. To have that group of players, come away from home, and get a bonus point win in the Premiership is a big thing for us.
“If you look at our front-row that finished the game with Billy Keast and Marcus Street, two young academy props, is a big moment in terms of their development. They have come through in recent weeks in the Premiership Rugby Cup, taken their chances, and then come on today at a crucial time and put in two big performances.Those are important things for us and I don’t want us to go away from that.”
With Baxter forced to cope without eight first-team stars on International duty and a handful of others due to injuries, the strength in depth of the Chiefs squad was put to the test against the Bears.
“We’ve watched what Bristol have done in terms of their prep in recent weeks,” explained Baxter. “They beat a strong Wasps side last week and they’ve used the recent five-game block of Cup games to organise for this return to the Premiership.
“We knew how well they have prepared for this game because we used to do exactly the same. You get that block of games, you’re meticulous in how you prepare and how much game time you want to give people, just because when you get back into the Premiership you want to be A1 from minute one.
“We’ve taken a different approach in recent weeks because we’ve done well in the Premiership in that first block, we’ve had two tough Champions Cup games, and we decided to rest a lot of the frontline guys for three weeks.It’s nearly a month since a lot of those players have played, but we were prepared to take a bit on the chin, hoping that we didn’t have to take too much and lose a game of rugby.
“For that reason, I have to give a huge amount of credit to the players. All week we’ve said we didn’t expect them to be perfect, simply because they’ve not played for a month, but what we did say was we did expect their endeavour and their application to go out and try and win the game to be perfect.
“I can be picky about the mistakes we made - and there were lots of them - we gave away a lot of penalties and we didn’t get the fluidity we normally, but we overcame quite a few hurdles out there, the biggest of which was tackling a Bristol team who are playing very well.”
Baxter continued: “I don’t want to get caught up talking about one refereeing decision at the end of the game, because that was 80 minutes of to-and-fro action, and you could pull out decisions all over the pitch which could have altered the game either way.
“What I have just said to the players is the most important thing is you don’t look at the fact we won the game and think that will gloss over the mistakes we made. What we have to do is learn and get better because Gloucester are rampant at the moment and we know we need to take a notable step up to be competitive next week.
“There are things we need to do to keep moving on, but I can’t sit here and not credit the players for what they have done. They knew they had to win the game and on the day they’ve found a way to do it, so they must be congratulated for their efforts.”
Baxter’s table-toppers will take Monday to recover from their latest victory, before reporting back to Sandy Park on Tuesday to ready themselves for the visit of third-placed Gloucester.