Home comforts await Baxter's Chiefs
By Mark Stevens
19/1/20
Rob Baxter watched on with great satisfaction as his Exeter Chiefs side ensured they have home advantage in the last eight of this season’s Heineken Champions Cup with victory over visiting La Rochelle.
With the two sides deadlocked at 14-apiece at the break, the Chiefs dominated the second period to claim all five points and ensure they finish Pool Two, not only unbeaten after six rounds, but with an impressive points tally of 27.
Luke Cowan-Dickie, Dave Ewers, Sam Simmonds (2) and Stuart Townsend grabbed tries for the Devonians, whose remaining points came courtesy of the boot of fly-half Joe Simmonds.
In reply, La Rochelle got an early converted try from Kini Murimurivalu, before Irish referee Frank Murphy awarded them a penalty try after home full-back Stuart Hogg was adjudged to have deliberately knocked the ball down as they attacked the Exeter try-line.
As yet, the Chiefs are unsure as to who they will face in April’s quarter-finals, but for now Director of Rugby Baxter was happy to toast his side’s efforts so far in the competition.
“To get a home quarter-final, that’s hugely satisfying,” he said. “It gives us everything we want out of the competition at this stage, which is an opportunity for as many of our supporters as possible to watch us here; it cuts down on travel; and the seedings should help us in some way.
“Saying that, whoever you play in the last eight of Europe, it won’t be easy. All the sides getting to this stage of the competition will not only be quality, but they’ll be bang on form too. You don’t get to this stage without having quality within your ranks. Whoever we play, it will be a hum-dinger of a game, and a fantastic challenge for us.”
With their place in the quarter-finals already assured ahead of this latest match-up, Baxter admitted it took the first half of the game for his side to really kick into gear.
“We were sat in the coaches office before the game watching Harlequins against Clermont and Bath’s game with Ulster and we saying to one another that we’re kind of in a similar situation, whereby we are the team that are in the box seat and want to make things happen, and the other team are coming here - with relatively little pressure on them - to just play and see what they can get.
“If we’re honest, we didn’t really have that emotional, physical, edgy, noisy type of performance that we’ve had in other rounds. We were OK, but at half time we simplified things. We talked about getting tough and emotional - and that we had to be prepared to knock ourselves around a bit.
“You could see how the game changed when we started to do that. We looked like a completely different team and you have to give great credit to the players for that. It’s very easy as a coach to say ‘do this or do that’, but it’s actually the players who gave to decide to play the game and take it into their own hands. We’ve done it in every round and we’ve done it again today.
“Five points in a Heineken Cup game is not to be sniffed at because it’s given us a great chance to do something in the quarter-finals.”
Among those to shine for the Chiefs were Sam Simmonds and Cowan-Dickie, both of whom were given huge praise by Baxter in his post-match assessment.
“Sam is like a pocket-rocket, he’s just so powerful,” added Baxter. “What I like about him is that in his growing maturity, he’s actually becoming one our leaders and he’s out there driving things and demanding things of the team around him.
“He’s playing very well right now, but for me the stand-out guy on the field, especially first half, was Luke Cowan-Dickie. I thought he was outstanding today and thoroughly deserved his man of the match award. His carrying, his tackling, his toughness, and his leadership - before and during the game - was fantastic and he’s a guy who is bang on form, playing very, very well.”