Chiefs side to face Worcester
By Mark Stevens
29/1/21
Rob Baxter is hopeful he and his Exeter Chiefs squad have made the most of their enforced two-week break - allowing them to reset themselves ahead of tomorrow’s Gallagher Premiership trip to Worcester Warriors (3pm).
The decision to suspend the final two rounds of the Champions Cup has meant the Devonians have not played since losing to Bristol Bears on January 9. However, that’s not meant the Chiefs have been inactive in any way.
In fact, it’s been quite the opposite at Sandy Park with Baxter and his players not only maintaining their training regime, but also engaging in a series of meetings where they have been able to review last season’s double triumph, address the current campaign, as well as plan for the remainder of the season.
It was - according to Director of Rugby Baxter - the ideal time to carry out such a process, particularly in the wake of back-to-back league defeats against Wasps and Bristol.
“We’ve stayed in training for most of that time, but the guys have also had two long weekends off as well,” said Baxter. “During that time, we’ve had some good conversations as a group about where we were; what we are about; what we want to be seen like and what we want the future to look like.
"For me - and hindsight is always a great thing - it’s been a good few weeks for us. I guess my biggest mistake has not been resetting from last season, because in reality we went from winning two finals in a space of a week, the players then had two and a half weeks off, before they were back in training getting ready for that first game up at Harlequins.
“Generally, during the off-season people get the previous campaign out of their system and when you meet up everyone is fresh again, but with the Covid scenarios, the first time the players met up this season was for their first day of training.
“In that time, the internationals were away [at the Autumn Nations Cup] and we never had a period where we could just stop and discuss whether anything had changed or if anything was different. At the same time, we didn’t ask questions of ourselves and we actually rolled along pretty well during those first few weeks of the season.
“If I’m honest, I was waiting for something to feel different, but we won the games and we flew into the Glasgow game and won that with maximum points. After that, we had our Covid situation, the game against Toulouse got cancelled, and looking at it now, it probably dented us a bit more than I appreciated at the time.
“We covered over the cracks with the win against Gloucester on Boxing Day, but even then we weren’t right and that, I guess, had followed through into those last two performances. When we looked at those games, we did okay, we were competitive for large parts, but we just weren’t right.
“We just needed to stop, reset, and talk about things. This past fortnight has allowed us to do that and I think we have addressed a lot of it. I’ve watched us train this week and it feels a bit like the latter weeks of last season when we got back and finished off really well. That is what I wanted to see.
“I wanted to see something more vibrant, more excited and guys ready to take games by the scruff of the neck. These weeks have allowed us to draw our breath and clear our heads, but we know there are challenges ahead.”
The first of those challenges comes this weekend against the Warriors, a side Baxter acknowledges are always worthy opponents.
“They are always one of the hardest teams to knock over,” warned Baxter. “It was only a few years ago they beat us here - and last season up there it was a tough old fixture. We’re expecting it to be full-on, physical and a confrontational game of Premiership Rugby. However, that’s how it should be!
“If we drop into the mindset that we’ve won a couple of trophies last season and that we can meander our way through this season, before we get excited for the big games, you won’t even get to that stage. For us, we have got to fire into this like it is the first game of the season and everything is on the line, that is the talk in our preparations for the rest of the week.”
Although Baxter will be without his England quartet of Luke Cowan-Dickie, Jonny Hill, Henry Slade and Harry Williams, who are all preparing for the upcoming Guinness Six Nations Championship, he will have at his disposal fellow internationals Tomas Francis, Jonny Gray and Stuart Hogg.
Also in the mix will be fly-half Joe Simmonds, who has recovered from the ankle injury he sustained during the second half of the Bristol game. He forms a half-back pairing alongside the recalled Jack Maunder.
EXETER CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE WORCESTER WARRIORS
15 Stuart Hogg
14 Olly Woodburn
13 Ian Whitten
12 Ollie Devoto
11 Tom O’Flaherty
10 Joe Simmonds
9 Jack Maunder
1 Alec Hepburn
2 Jack Yeandle (capt)
3 Tomas Francis
4 Jonny Gray
5 Sam Skinner
6 Dave Ewers
7 Richard Capstick
8 Sam Simmonds
16 Jack Innard
17 James Kenny
18 Marcus Street
19 Don Armand
20 Sean Lonsdale
21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne
22 Harvey Skinner
23 Tom Hendrickson