Baxter's reaction to weekend games
By Mark Stevens
19/8/18
Defeat on Friday, victory on Saturday.
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter admitted he had seen both positives and negatives from his squad as they completed their double-header of pre-season fixtures against the Cornish Pirates and Cardiff Blues.
The Pirates kicked things off on Friday night by causing an upset by defeating the Chiefs 29-21. Despite bagging a hat-trick of tries from No.8 Tom Lawday, all of which were converted by Joe Simmonds, Devon’s finest were undone by the Championship side who claimed a well-deserved victory in front of a 3,000 capacity crowd at the Mennaye Field.
However, 24 hours later a more experienced Chiefs side took to the field on their own Sandy Park patch against the visiting Welsh region, who despite taking an early lead through Steve Shinger’s converted try, struggled to handle the pace and power of Baxter’s side.
England international Sam Simmonds claimed one of five home tries, the others coming from a Penalty Try, Matt Kvesic, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Ian Whitten. Record points-scorer Gareth Steenson produced a faultless display of kicking to finish with 11 points on the day.
“Today was a lot more like how we want to play, rather than how we did last night at the Cornish Pirates,” said Baxter. “In truth, the two games have been very good for us. We probably needed that first game to actually show everyone how not to do things.
“Whereas today, we were able to not only put those things right, but at the same time tell the players to go out and have some confidence in the things we know work for us over 80 minutes.”
Baxter added: “Anyone who knows rugby knows there are very few games against decent sides that are decided in the first 15, 20 minutes. There is a process you have to go through to start establishing some dominance. Cardiff started well, but once we got to grips with things, we started to get results.
“We exited well, we didn’tmess around in our half, we kept the ball well in the opposition half, and then converted that five-metre pressure. That’s kind of what we do as a side.The other thing that really pleased me was that we only conceded 10 points against what was a pretty dangerous Cardiff Blues team.
“Late on they really came at us, but some last-ditch scrambling and a real togetherness from the guys kept them out which, from a coaching perspective, is very pleasing moving forward.”
Unlike the previous evening against the Pirates, the Chiefs produced a much slicker, patient display to overcome the Welsh region, who last season collected the European Challenge Cup with victory over Gloucester in Bilbao.
“Last night we were guilty of losing patience, which caused us one or two issues,” continued Baxter. Today, we were a lot stronger. That’s partly down to the fact we had more frontline experience in the team, but we also had guys prepared to work harder for much longer.There were some very good individuals performances and individual moments out there.
“Those moments, though, come on the back of some good team togetherness and that machine-like ability we have. Moving forward what we have to concentrate on is that machine-like ability, not trying to create moments out of nothing. Yes, there were still a few flippy-flappy passes out there, which may look good, but that’s not what we are about.
“We’ll have a chat about that on Monday but, on the whole, I did feel the Exeter machine was a bit more oiled today and that we’re getting ready to go.”