Chiefs pay the price
By Mark Stevens
17/12/17
Rob Baxter is confident his Exeter Chiefs side will be stronger moving forward, this despite them suffering back-to-back losses against Leinster in the European Champions Cup.
Having come unstuck 18-8 at Sandy Park in their opening contest, the English champions were then beaten 22-17 by the Irish province in their Round Four encounter at the Aviva Stadium.
Having stormed into a 17-3 lead - thanks in the main to converted tries from Sam Skinner and Luke Cowan-Dickie - the Chiefs allowed their rivals to peg them back, eventually conceding a late try to Luke McGrath to go alongside 17 points from the boot of home skipper Isa Nacewa.
Leinster’s victory ensured they made it four wins from four starts to lead Pool 3 with 18 points, while Montpellier’s victory at home to Glasgow Warriors saw them leapfrog the Chiefs to second in the standings with just two more qualifying rounds remaining.
“It was tough out there today,” said Baxter. “It seemed in the second half that every mistake we made, it came back to hurt us. When you look at the penalties we conceded, they were kind of spread around in various areas of play. In the first half, we did a lot of what we said we wanted to go out there and do. Sadly, we couldn’t replicate that in the second half and we didn’t quite deal with the pressure of them coming back at us as well as we could have.
“At times some of the individual errors and individual moments in the game, they really hurt us, and in big games when it’s tight as it was today, that can be the difference between winning and losing. Where Leinster were good was that as the penalty counted racked up, so they found found a way to grind out a victory. It was like they were happy to tough it out for longer than we did.”
Two Nacewa penalties just before the break gave the three-time European champions a fighting chance at the break, then when the two sides re-emerged for the second period, it was Leo Cullen’s side who ultimately prevailed to claim a notable scalp.
“I was a little bit annoyed with the soft points we gave up at the end of the first half with a couple of penalties,” added Baxter. “In the end, that has come back to haunt us.
“Also, what else got highlighted today was if you make mistakes or you have a lack of accuracy, again that can hurt you because there were some big swings out there. There were times when it felt like we were making a mistake at one end of the of the field and all of a sudden we were having to defend at the other end, and those were the big swings that got harder and harder for us to control as the game wore on.”
Baxter, though, was encouraged by the fighting spirit of his side, who must now ready themselves for a return to Premiership action next Saturday with a trip to Northampton Saints.
“Ultimately, the most important thing for us is to come out of today and of last week’s defeat as a better team and with a group of better players,” continued Baxter.“I genuinely think we will, because you could see the improvement in us in all kinds of ways from last week.
“In just seven days, the guys looked a lot more comfortable with the whole environment the game was representing, and we just haven’t quite been able to see it off for a number of reasons.
“As I said. there were times today when we were very good. The players did what we asked of them, which was to go out and play with no fear and look to score tries, but in the end we’ve come up just five points short in what was a very tough game of rugby. I’ve no doubt we will be stronger for these experiences and now we’ve got to ready ourselves for what will be an equally tough game up at Northampton next week.”