Baxter is left frustrated

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter was left frustrated after a late penalty try ensured visiting Bath of a share of the points in their Aviva Premiership clash at Sandy Park.

Leading 12-5 entering into the final throws of a keenly-contested derby battle, the Chiefs - not for the first time in the game - fell foul of referee David Rose, who awarded the visitors a crucial score with just four minutes remaining.

Fly-half Gareth Steenson had earlier kicked four penalties for the home side to cancel out a first half try from Michael Claassens, but it was not to be for the Chiefs who dominated for long periods of the second half both territory and possession.

The draw meant Bath continue to hold a top flight curse over the Devon club, who have now failed to defeat them in six encounters between the two sides.

Afterwards, Baxter gave his take on the game, stating: “Whenever a team peg you back that late in the game, specifically when you have quite good control of things, it feels tough. However, there is a reality to it all, I don’t think we played well enough in the first half and I don’t think our forwards were right on the money.

“That changed pretty dramatically in the second half and ultimately they gave us the control to really pull away. Then we kind of did what we did in the first half which was doubled-up a couple of errors and a couple of penalties and all of a sudden we were defending in the corner and the penalty try happens and the game has gone from you. That is a little frustrating but this is the best result that we have had against Bath and it shows that we are getting a lot of things right.

“We conceded a couple of soft tries, although from Bath’s perspective they will say they have taken them well, but we doubled-up penalty positions inside the Bath 22 for their first try and did the same for their second.

“Without those we were pretty much in control of territory and possession for the rest of the game. We are still unbeaten at home in the Premiership and we are still collecting points as we need to. We are in the top half of the league which is where we want to be.

“We have to pull our socks-up next week [against Northampton] as we have had a couple of tough fixtures. There was the two point loss at Gloucester where they came back at us relatively late and now a draw here.

“We have to say mentally that we are doing a lot of things right to be so competitive in the league against sides from the top half of the table then towards the end of the game things are going wrong.”

Rose's decision to award the penalty try did not sit well with much of the capacity crowd come the final whistle. The Plymouth-based officially was booed from the field by the home faithful.

Baxter admitted afterwards he had no real complaint with the penalty try, but he did disagree with some of Rose's other calls during the game.

"I’m not overly concerned about the penalty try decision, but I am a little bit frustrated with some of the penalties that got us into that position on the pitch," he added. "For virtually the whole of the second half, we were the scrum going forward, but there seemed to be quite a few getting reset and couple of penalties went against us. With the penalty try, it potentially might have been a better decision just to let them score out wide and given them a challenging conversion kick."

Next up for the Chiefs is this Saturday's visit of Northampton Saints and Baxter wants his team to step up another level for that clash.

"We're not overly disappointed with today, a draw is better than lost," he said. "We're still collecting points and at this stage of the season that's the most important thing.

"Next week, though, we will probably need to step up another level, particularly up front. We need to carry on that second half performance into the Saints game. Conditions are not suiting us too much at the moment and it's limiting us somewhat because it's difficult to play multi-phase rugby in those conditions. That said, we're doing well and we are adapting, but we need to keep working hard because on territory and possession today, we should have scored more points."