Baxter is left frustrated at Wasps

By Mark Stevens

A frustrated Rob Baxter did his best to salvage as many positives as possible as he saw his Exeter Chiefs side kick-off the New Year with a 19-16 defeat at London Wasps in the Aviva Premiership.

Andy Goode's last-gasp drop-goal enabled the home side to not only leapfrog the Chiefs in the current standings, but at the same time gain revenge for their 30-26 defeat at Sandy Park earlier in the season.

Goode's late heroics capped a fine fightback from the Londoners, who had trailed 13-3 at the break after Dave Lewis' early try, together with eight points from Henry Slade, gave the Chiefs a strong foothold on the game at the interval.

Elliot Daly's long-range penalty was all Wasps could muster during the opening 40 minutes. However, the former Premiership and European champions were much improved after the break as additional kicks from Goode, plus a converted Joe Simpson try hauled them back in front.

Slade levelled the contest with five remaining courtesy of a second penalty, but it was Wasps who had the final say when former England international Goode dropped a sublime 40-metre effort with the last kick of the game.

"Of course we're disappointed to lose the game right at the death," said Baxter, who also saw his side denied a try through Slade following consultation with the TV match official Graham Hughes.

"Fair play to Wasps, we caught them with a bit of a sucker punch early on and we controlled the first half very well. We were 13-3 up at the start of the second half, yet we looked the nervous team and they came out and really got after us. We made some poor decisions; did some poor things and they clawed their way back into the game.

"It took for them to get into the lead for us to start really playing again, which is a shame really. Today, again, was a pressure game of rugby, yet Wasps seemed to deal with that pressure a little bit better than us."

Baxter added: "It's tough for everybody to lose like that at the end, but did we play good territory or pressure and did we really look after the ball as well as we could have done? Probably not.

"It's one of those things at the end of the day, but we always look bigger picture and that is we have come away to a Wasps side that are notably better than they have been for the last few years. In the end, we've got a losing bonus point and had one or two decisions gone the other way, we could have been the team smiling right at the end.

"As it was, Wasps got the win and we have to look to move on as quickly as we can. As I've just said to the players, it's far from the end of the world. We've got a great run of fixtures between now and the end of the season - only four of them are away from home - and we finish with what is an exciting run of games, especially if the grounds firm up a bit and we're able to get back to running and playing multi-phase rugby.

"I'm not too downhearted because we've got positives to take from the game. Henry Slade has just played his first full 80 minutes of Premiership rugby in what was a very pressurised game at times, plus defensively we had Wasps under pressure for long periods. The only down side was that we tended to back it up with some ill discipline or a couple of missed tackles, which ended up hurting us."

Baxter would not be drawn into whether Slade's second half effort was a try or not, instead he remarked: "The result is tough right now, but sometimes you have to be honest; look at yourselves and then look to be a better team next time and not allow things to come down to just one moment."

A four week break from league duty now awaits the Chiefs who have European dates with Glasgow Warriors and Cardiff Blues to undertake, before the LV= Cup resumes with clashes against Ospreys and Worcester Warriors.