Pre-Season Fixtures confirmed
By Mark Stevens
29/5/18
Rob Baxter may have just brought the curtain down on the 2017/18 season at Exeter Chiefs, but already he is looking to the next campaign and what lies in store for his side.
The Chiefs Director of Rugby has already seen the vast majority of his playing squad bed in to a well-earned break after the rigours of another demanding season in both the Premiership and Europe, but it will not be long before he welcomes them back to Sandy Park for the hard toil of pre-season.
And part of that build up to what will be Exeter's ninth season in English rugby's top flight will be their pre-season fixtures, all of which have been confirmed today by the Devon club.
The fixtures will kick-off on Friday, August 17 when they make the short trek down the A30 to face Championship outfit Cornish Pirates at the Mennaye Field (7:30pm).
Less than 24 hours later the Chiefs will be in action again, this time on home soil when they welcome Cardiff Blues to Sandy Park on Saturday, August 18 (3pm).
The Chiefs will then wrap up their pre-season games with a trip across the Irish Sea for a first-ever encounter against Munster on Friday, August 24 (7:30pm).
The Munster fixture will take place on the newly modified 3G pitch at Irish Independent Park in Cork - and will see the Chiefs tackle Johann van Graan’s side as they themselves gear up for next season’s Guinness PRO14 and Champions Cup campaigns.
"Obviously we tend to try and fix these games into either two or three-year blocks," explained Baxter. "Last year we went Cardiff Blues in pre-season and the Cornish Pirates came to us, so there is an agreement in place with both those clubs that we will play each other again this year.
"We know Cardiff will provide a decent test for us here at Sandy Park, while heading down to Penzance on a Friday night at that time of year will be a good experience for us as well.
"With the third fixture against Munster, I think it's a great trip to not only test ourselves against a great side with good European experience, but it's also a new place for our supporters to go and visit. Somehow over the years we've managed to avoid one another in Europe, so it should make for a great trip over to Ireland."
With the success of the Chiefs reaching the past three Premiership finals, it's meant that Baxter and his coaching team have had to look at different ways to maximise the most of their pre-season build-up.
"For all the right reasons our pre-seasons in recent years have become a lot shorter," added Baxter. "That in turn has meant we've had to look at ways of ensuring that not only do we get the correct amount of conditioning time into the guys, but also the right amount of game time to ensure we are competitive from minute one.
"That has meant for us to get that balance right, we've tended to double up one of the weekends to ensure that pretty much the whole squad get game minutes into them. As I said, it's three very good fixtures for us and games I know that will help us get up to speed for those opening weeks of the new season."
As the Chiefs have seen at first hand, the Premiership is getting more competitive by the year and Baxter says he can ill-afford to send his troops into battle under cooked.
"It's a very tough, competitive division, especially around the top," said Baxter. "We've seen it again this season with the battle for places going right down to the final weekend. Although we had a decent margin at the top come the end of the regular season, it didn't feel like we had that huge amount of space for a lot of the time.
"That battle for the top four was particularly close come the end. Leicester just missed out on wins in the end, while the year before we finished second to Wasps, even though we both had the same amount of points. Getting into that top six, then the top four, it's a real battle.
"If anyone thinks for one minute that you can have an OK pre-season and everything will be fine, that's when it will come back and really hurt you. That's why we have to put in place a structured and solid pre-season to ensure we are ready to go from the outset. What I like about the pre-season we've set up is that it will not only challenge us, but it will give us good game time and the odd new experience as well."