Chiefs side to face Saracens
By Mark Stevens
25/5/18
When Rob Baxter welcomed his players back to training last July, it didn’t take long for the Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby and his fellow coaches to talk about parking last season’s heroics.
Whilst it was an amazing achievement for Devon’s finest, just seven years into their Premiership odyssey, it was straight back to business for the newly-crowned champions after the drama and excitement of their extra-time victory over Wasps.
Unwilling to bask in the glory of their Twickenham triumph for too long, the Chiefs – like a hawk-eyed fighter pilot – had a new mission, a new target, now firmly in their crosshairs.
“From the moment we came back in, the most important thing we talked about was that we couldn’t cling on to being champions,” said Baxter. “Once you have won one competition, you then have to decide to build another successful team, another winning team hopefully. Yes, you can involve a lot of the same guys – and we have a few who have been here for a while now – but you actually have to set yourselves new standards, new goals, new targets and new ways of playing and finding form.
“Actually, what you talk about initially as a coaching group is about building another team, not from the ground up, but you have to use the foundations you have created to build a team capable of winning important games. What has been so good about this current team is that from the outset the players bought into that concept fantastically well.”
Despite a last-gasp opening day defeat at Gloucester, the Chiefs proved throughout the course of the season that they were again the team to beat. A total of 17 victories from 22 regular rounds underlined their dominance as not only did they finish the season top of the tree for the first time in their history, but some eight points clear of next-best Saracens, whom they face tomorrow in the season’s showpiece event.
Under Baxter’s guidance, the Chiefs have risen year upon year and have established themselves not only as a force within the English game, but also in Europe where the next objective moving forward has to be to try and conquer the great and the good of the Northern Hemisphere.
At the same time, Baxter insists lessons have been learnt from past experiences, including both previous Premiership finals, one of which ended victorious, the other in bitter defeat.
“You can’t be so foolish to say experience doesn’t make things different,” added Baxter. “It will feel different again this year. It feels different to the first final and the second felt different to the first. Last year, however, it felt more controlled from us. We knew what to expect and the things we needed to do to win the game.
“Having lost the final before was a big driver for us in preparing better and hitting the pitch in the best shape possible. I know this will sound odd, but we talked about going at things with a determination to win from the start, rather than have a look and see what the occasion will bring. Hopefully, those experiences will drive us again this year.
“As I said, we know the things we need to go through this week to get the detail done and the mindset right to ensure we turn up bang on and ready to hit the pitch in the best shape possible. However, Saracens will be in exactly the same boat as us, so it will make for a very interesting battle come the weekend.”
As Baxter rightly warns, the threat that stands in the way of the Chiefs becoming only the fourth side ever to retain the title is a considerable one. The Londoners will be fully armed with their plethora of international stars, headed up by the likes of Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje, the Vunipola brothers and, skipper Brad Barritt.
Asked this week how he assessed the threat of Mark McCall’s side, Baxter replied: “Well, the truth is that you don’t have to look back at the last three or four games, you only have to look back to their last one to see how dangerous they can be.
“There is a huge reality that we have to make it a titanic struggle on the gain line and around the set-piece if we want to get any kind of foothold in the game, but it is always like that with Saracens. Those aren’t things that you have to try and find one week, you have to find those every time you play them.
“That is something that you have to be aware of and if you fail in those battles, then you fail in the game, so it will be an interesting challenge for us.”
That said, the Chiefs are themselves in fine form. Ten successive victories in all competitions mean they are firing on all cylinders, plus they also have the knowledge in their head that they have defeated Saracens in this past four encounters.
“I think we are in good form as well and a good run of not just wins, but a good run of performances,” added Baxter. “We have had some recent success against Saracens, although we are not so naïve as to realise that they probably have not been full strength sides against full strength sides, if you talk about international availability etc, so it will be a very interesting challenge.
“I am really pleased that it’s Saracens because over the course of the year, we have been the two most consistent sides, we finished in the top two and were the home semi-finalists. We did lose to them a couple of years ago and I think it is one of those games that… I don’t want to say all or nothing, but it does feel like that a little bit because Saracens haven’t been in the latter stages of Europe this year and there is no real reason for us not to say this is a game where we go absolutely flat out and we can say with no excuses who comes out on top.”
Team news for the Chiefs ahead of kick-off is relatively simple as Baxter selects the same match-day squad for that which saw off Newcastle Falcons 36-5 in last weekend’s semi-final at Sandy Park. That means Don Armand skippers the side from the back-row, Joe Simmonds gets the nod at fly-half, and only four of last season’s starting XV for the final – Luke Cowan-Dickie, Armand, Jack Nowell and Olly Woodburn – start this time around.
“I know there is only four starting that started last year, but it is a little bit false because we have a numerous number of the bench and a couple of guys running full on with the squad now and just getting back from injury,” added Baxter. “The group itself isn’t as changed as it sounds and they were guys that were involved in semi-finals, our run to the semi-finals, and training and they were all there at Twickenham.
“I think actually it is a big group that has been involved and they have an experience of it, I think the freshness can add a bit of desperation when you need it sometimes. We have quite a number of guys there who weren’t the guys that lifted the trophy last year and as much as they were delighted to be part of the squad, they haven’t had that feeling and it is something you should fight for and you should want to taste and experience.
“We have got to expect those guys to be part of our driving force and part of our motivation to be a better side. If the guys who haven’t yet achieved things for you can’t add to your motivation, they shouldn’t be at the club, they should go somewhere else.
You can’t just rely on the guys that have done it for you before and say they are going to be the most highly motivated people, they can only be driven by the people beneath them and I think that is what we have seen from the group this year.”
CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE SARACENS
15 Lachie Turner
14 Jack Nowell
13 Henry Slade
12 Sam Hill
11 Olly Woodburn
10 Joe Simmonds
9 Nic White
1 Alec Hepburn
2 Luke Cowan-Dickie
3 Tomas Francis
4 Mitch Lees
5 Jonny Hill
6 Dave Ewers
7 Don Armand (capt)
8 Sam Simmonds
16 Jack Yeandle
17 Ben Moon
18 Greg Holmes
19 Sam Skinner
20 Thomas Waldrom
21 Stuart Townsend
22 Gareth Steenson
23 Ian Whitten