Baxter pleased to get back on track
By Mark Stevens
31/1/21
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter praised his side’s hard graft after the Gallagher Premiership champions returned to winning ways with a 21-17 victory over Worcester Warriors at Sixways.
Having surrendered top spot following back-to-back losses to Wasps and Bristol Bears, the Chiefs edged back into the top two courtesy of this latest triumph.
First half tries from Jonny Gray and Ian Whitten, both of which were converted by Joe Simmonds, helped the visitors storm into a 14-0 lead, before the Warriors hit back with a converted try from Oli Morris and a penalty from Duncan Weir.
Ollie Devoto bagged Exeter’s third try inside four minutes of the second half, only for the Midlanders to reply with a converted Weir score just moments later.
Both sides had further chances to add to their tally during a frenetic last quarter to the game, but it was the Chiefs who ultimately prevailed, much to the delight of their leader in his post-match assessment.
“The important thing for me is making sure we can get back on track when things aren’t perfect,” said Baxter. “There is a bit of pressure that comes, if you let it, from last season, and we are still in the process of moving on.
“I don’t mind us grinding through some tough victories. That’s what we became renowned for and used to get us in the top four (of the Premiership) when we first got there. You can’t just blow a team away, you’ve got to lock down and graft.
“This was a tough game of Premiership rugby today. Worcester did what they always do whenever we come here, they stood in front of us, gave us a very hard game, broke our momentum down at times and stuck in there after we got off to what was a blistering start.
“If you look at how we started the game, it looked as though it could have been a comprehensive result for us, but as it was, it wasn’t in the end and we are pleased to pick up the four points on the road.”
Just getting back on track, however, was just what the Chiefs needed and Baxter was quick to acknowledge that fact, adding: “We showed some good qualities, some good character to fight it through, but just talking to the lads I’ve said to them we just need to be comfortable being good, instead of being great. That’s the scenario we find ourselves in at the moment.
“I’ve told them to just relax and just getting comfortable going back to being a good, decent Premiership side for a block of games, because we were very good to start with, but then the minute we stopped being good and made a couple of mistakes, we compounded error on error, started to dither and kind of forced things on ourselves, which didn’t need to happen.
“Getting back to being a good, comfortable Premiership side, who grind out results is going to be a big focus for us over these next five or six weeks.”