Chiefs victory delights Baxter

It was, however, the nature of the home display that delighted the Chiefs’ Director of Rugby at the final whistle.

He said: “The most pleasing thing is watching a group of players who worked extremely hard in pre-season put so much into a game and get the reward that their hard work deserves.

“Leicester took some breaking down, and it could be one of those results where people don’t see it for what it was.It was probably far closer and far more competitive than the scoreline suggests, but we just stuck at it and stuck at it, and refused to bend and buckle, and then scores come because of that.”

Having trailed 6-0 at the half-hour mark, the Chiefs were able to turn the deficit round by the break as they landed all-important scores through Woodburn and Simmonds.

“What I liked was that we kept the ball on the field, we were brave, we stayed attacking and that we willing to keep working hard for one another.

“However, the most pleasing thing from a coaching perspective was how prepared we were to stick to the game plan, especially when it was tough in that first half.It can be easy to stick to plan when you’re 20 points up, but it’s not so easy when you’re behind or when it was as tight as it was.

“When we look back at the video we’ll see what probably spurned a few chances out there today, but we stuck at it and, more importantly, we were happy to create more of those chances again and again.”

“We have managed to get a bit of a flyer and get the five points and it sets us up nicely for pushing on, which we have got to do.

“Leicester went in quite light on pre-season minutes with that group of players and they will be better than that, and we have got to make sure we push on our intensity next week at Wasps.”

With a number of players excelling on Day One of the new season, it was Matt Kvesic who stole the headlines with a try-scoring, man-of-the-match display.

The openside, who joined the Chiefs from Gloucester last season, endured a mixed first year in Devon, but he’s returned this summer with a hunger that has singled him out as the club’s star performer so far.

“He looks hungry,” said Baxter. “In fact, he looks like a man who has been denied food for some time.He looks hungry and he looks like he wants to take his fill of rugby.I think what you are seeing now, I’d love to say, is the transformation of Matt back to the kind of player he was pre-Gloucester.

“I think there was a period at Gloucester where he was so focused on the breakdown that he forgot all about his other footballing abilities.I don’t want to talk too much at this stage, especially as we’re just one game in, but he’s gone away this pre-season and not been negative, but instead been positive and come back in with a real desire to perform.

“I thought what Matt and Sam Simmonds gave us a target forward with the way they played.Then, you’ve got a big guy like Don Armand backing it all up. Today, it looked a very good combination in that back-row, but the challenge for all of them is whether they can keep it going.