Baxter 'pleased' after friendly win

By Mark Stevens
14/8/2016

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter said he was “pleased” after watching his side kick-off their pre-season programme with a comfortable 45-3 victory over the Scarlets at Sandy Park.

The Aviva Premiership club - who paraded a different starting line-up in each half - dominated the Welsh region throughout, scoring six tries in total through Harry Williams, Tom Johnson, Matt Jess, Thomas Waldrom and Olly Woodburn (2).

Gareth Steenson plundered five conversions in the second half, whilst there were further points from Joe Simmonds (2) and Will Hooley in this often one-sided encounter.

In reply, summer signing Rhys Patchell kicked a first half penalty for the visitors, but that was scant reward on a tough afternoon in the Westcountry sunshine for the men from Llanelli.

Reflecting on his side’s showing, Baxter said: “It’s like anything you can watch the game and you can find areas where you can be critical of a few things. Overall, though, the one thing we talked about this week was making sure we showed a good attitude and I think what shows your attitude more than anything else is the defensive score more than the attacking score.

“To only concede three points and no tries is fantastic. There were some situations where we could have let Scarlets through, but we didn’t; we stayed and fought on our line and we came through some tough periods. As I said, I’m delighted with our attitude as a whole and I’m pretty pleased with the end outcome.

“Two or three little things we have worked on did create some space today. Ali [Hepher] has worked very hard on some elements of our attack and I think three of four of those, especially in the second half, we saw really come to fruition.”

With both the Chiefs and the Scarlets choosing to rest many of their stars who have been away on international duty this summer, Exeter were again able to underline their strength in depth with 30 others players - not including newcomers Ollie Devoto, Dave Dennis and Greg Holmes - getting the chance to impress the watching Baxter.

“All of the 30 players involved today looked physically and mentally sharp, fresh as well, and they looked like they were ready to go out there and play rugby. Most elements of the game held up well for us. The set-piece supplied a good amount of ball, defensively our shape was good and our enthusiasm to get off the line and create line speed was also good.

“In attack we did find some holes and some space and we finished off some nice tries, so overall it was a very pleasing first game.”

Baxter, though, is likely to introduce more faces back into the mix next week for the visit of Ulster Rugby to Sandy Park on Saturday (3pm).

“For it to go well for and for us not to use pretty much any of the bench we had named today is great. We didn’t name anybody who came home late from the internationals this summer, so there are still a group of players who are going to get game time next week against Ulster. They are some of what you would describe as some of our frontline players over the last few years, so again that is very pleasing.

“Add into things that we have still got Ollie Devoto to fit in, Greg Holmes and Dave Dennis are now with us and going well, so there is a good chance of them getting involved next weekend.”

Saturday’s fixture with the Irish province is the first of three scheduled dates between the two clubs this season, this after they were paired together in the European Champions Cup, and Baxter is looking for another step up in standard from his squad.

“It’s like anything we must look to be better next week than we were this week,” he added. “Training has to be better than it was last week and I’ve just said to the lads we must recover well so that we can train flat out on Monday because we should be cranking things up, and training should be more intense, physical and harder.

“It shouldn’t be us easing down and getting ready for the Premiership season, it should be about us seeing how hard we can push on in these next few weeks.”