Baxter delighted with victory

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter hailed a “professional and thorough” performance from his team as they returned to winning ways with a 46-17 victory over visiting Newcastle Falcons at Sandy Park.

Returning to top flight action for the first time in a month, the Devon club produced one of their best displays of the season so far to swot aside the attentions of Dean Richards’ men.

In an often one-sided encounter, the Chiefs ran in six tries on the day courtesy of Jack Nowell, Henry Slade, Penalty Try, Thomas Waldrom, Phil Dollman (pictured) and Haydn Thomas.

Fly-half Slade slotted a further 14 points with the boot, whilst the division’s top points-scorer, Gareth Steenson, added a conversion to his seasonal tally.

The Falcons countered with converted second half tries from Ruki Tipuna and Will Welch, along a first half penalty from Tom Catterick, but it was scant reward for the visitors on the day.

Post-match, a happy Baxter praised the performance which lifted his side back into the top three of the division. He said: “The important thing was that it was nice for us to be at home and put in what I thought was a well-rounded, professional and thorough performance.

“We have talked for a number of weeks, particularly after the last Premiership block, how important it is to get the detail right of what we do on a regular basis and I though that is what we did in this game.

“We've had a good training week and dealt with a lot of detail of what we wanted to achieve and really all we did was go out there and put it into action.”

From minute one the Chiefs were quickly into their stride and their first half display underlined their supremacy.

Baxter admitted the first 40 minutes had set the tone for the victory, adding: “After a long trip, like Newcastle to Exeter, you have to hit the pitch in exactly the right frame of mind.

“I know that Deano [Dean Richards] is slightly frustrated and probably feels they didn't quite get our of the blocks, while on the other hand I'm feeling that we hit the ground running and looked sharp and hungry.

“The combination of the two meant we put in a good performance, Newcastle probably felt a bit jaded, and the outcome was that over the course of the opening 30 minutes we managed to squeeze enough field position.

“We controlled territory and control possession that allowed the scores to come. The third quarter was tough but we weathered it, came through it and pushed on again.”

Baxter continued: “I was a little frustrated how the game broke-up at the end. We started to leave some holes defensively and Newcastle exploited that to score their points. But overall, I'm not going to be too critical of their performance where we looked hungry and looked please to be back to Premiership rugby.”