Match Reaction - Rob Baxter
By Mark Stevens
26/11/21
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby, Rob Baxter, is convinced that his team are now finding their mojo again after a late Sam Simmonds try at Bath earned them a fifth victory in nine Gallagher Premiership matches.
The England and British Lions forward struck with just two minutes remaining to help secure a 23-16 victory for the Devonians at the Recreation Ground.
Bath - winless in eight starts this season - played their part in an action-packed Westcountry derby, scoring a first half try through Miles Reid, plus 11 points from the boot of fly-half Orlando Bailey. However, it was not enough to dent the Chiefs, who replied with tries from Josh Iosefa-Scott and Simmonds with Henry Slade and Joe Simmonds sharing the remainder of the points.
Although not the prettiest of victories, Baxter did not care too much about the overall performance, focusing more on the end outcome in his post-match assessment.
“We’ve taken a few knocks, including losing the final last year. We probably haven’t really got ourselves over that,” he said. “It’s only 13 months since we won the double. We’re still dealing with some of that, deciding how we want to define ourselves as a group. But we’re coming together. We’ve won an away game. I’ll take that at any time.
“Every win is a good win for us at the moment. One thing we need to address more than anything is getting back to those core basics, about what being a rugby player is all about.It’s a privilege. We should be enjoying training hard, enjoy getting on the bus together and enjoy playing games of rugby.
"We've probably become a little bit miserable if I'm honest with you. We've probably had a few years where winning against a bottom of the league side has become a bit regulation, and I think that's part of the issue where we're lacking a little bit of vibrancy.
"We're not lacking heart though. There's lots of little things, and part of it is just that vibrancy of playing rugby, but that's there and I think that's going to come.
"It's not going to come overnight, we're going to have to work at it over the next weeks and months."
Although down at the break, the Chiefs rallied well in the second half with those coming off the bench adding particularly zest in the latter stages.
“We were down 10-6 at half-time. We said the next 10 minutes was where we could make a difference and we worked fantastically hard for our try.
“Our set-piece gained strength and things started to go our way. It took us longer than we would have liked to break them down. But we broke them down just at the right time.
"Credit to the players [for going for the try at the end]. We've made errors or got stopped a few times but the players felt the momentum growing. I'm really glad they took the option of the scrum and the eight pick, because that was always the best option and we converted it really well.
“As I said, there was a lot to like in that last period of the game, but the job for us as coaches is to get the team aligned a little bit better.”