Pictures: Exeter Rugby Club/Pinnacle Photo Agency

Chiefs side to face Falcons

After 21 rounds of bruising battle in the Aviva Premiership, Exeter Chiefs will head out at Newcastle Falcons tomorrow determined to land a telling final blow.

In a season of highs and lows for Rob Baxter’s side, the dream of tackling Europe’s elite may have been curtailed with last weekend’s late loss to Harlequins, but as a whole the Chiefs leader insists there is much to be positive about ahead of their trip to Kingston Park.

With the first major silverware in the bag, another tidy showing in the Heineken Cup and some notable scalps within the Premiership, Baxter says the foundations are well and truly in place for an exciting future ahead.

“I talked at our club dinner last week about how you have to put a balance on the season as a whole,” explained Baxter. “And the way you do that is by competing in the here and now and being excited about where we go in the future.

“When I look at our season as a whole, I think we have had quite a good balance. Yes, we’ve had the odd moment where it has not felt like that – the result at home to Sale shocks you out of feeling like things have been OK – but when you sit back and break things down game by game, it’s not that bad.

“We’ve had seven Premiership games where we have lost by one score and in a lot of those game we were leading for large parts of the game. We’ve had 10 or 11 guys breaking through into what I would say are first-team regulars for the first time, plus we’ve had Nowellsy and TJ play for England, four other guys in the Saxons squad, and we’ve had some great Heineken Cup games against the likes of Toulon and Cardiff, both of whom were packed full of internationals.”

Baxter continued: “As I said, there have been times this season where things have felt very good, especially that first spell where we were fourth in the table and had started the Heineken Cup campaign very well. Because of the way we started, that kind of made the end of the season feel like it faded away a bit.

“However, the end of the season contained us winning the LV= Cup which – and this is hard to say from a coaching perspective – did take a bit out of us. Those latter stages we put in a couple of high-energy performances that were both physically and mentally draining, and we did pay the price a bit for that.

“That said, we’ve reset ourselves in recent weeks and last week was certainly what I would say was an Exeter-type performance. Had we been in a bit more form, we’d probably have won that game. Right now we’re not on a great run of form, but we still have great quality within our ranks and that is what is important to show at Newcastle this weekend.”

Buoyed by their much-improved display against Harlequins, the Chiefs head to the North East having made just three changes to their starting XV. Ben Moon returns to the front-row in place of Carl Rimmer, while a bang to the head for Dave Ewers means the imposing forward misses out and is replaced by James Scaysbrook. In the back division, the only change sees Henry Slade at fly-half with leading points-scorer Gareth Steenson dropping down to the replacements’ bench.

Rimmer’s demotion to the bench means Craig Mitchell misses out, while England international Tom Johnson has recovered from a hamstring injury and offers back up to the Exeter back-row.
Baxter has now told his players that last weekend’s display has to be the benchmark from now on as he will not accept a return to the limp performance that saw them crash 55-12 in their previous outing.

“The Harlequins performance has to be a start point for us,” said Baxter. “We start from there and add to it, it’s not the be-all and end-all. We put a lot into that game, but that’s where we start from. You have to keep building your quality and what you can improve on top of that. We’ve got to be a bit frustrated with losing and realise that’s a minimum standard and we have to keep working hard.”

With the Falcons themselves safe from the threat of relegation, Baxter expects this weekend’s host to offer a different challenge, simply because there will be no pressure on them.

“They have had a tough season, yet they’ve had a successful one as they are still in the Premiership next year,” added the Chiefs coach. “That is the job of all of us – to stay in the Premiership – so it will be interesting this weekend as this will be the first time this season where they are playing without any pressure on them.

“It will be interesting to see what that brings because it will be a different blueprint for them to work off. All season they’ve been working to a certain style of play, but that may well change now so we have to be ready for that. At the same time, it’s also an interesting challenge for us as not only do we have a long trip, but we want to go up there and finish our season on a high. The guys have talked about that this week, now it’s up to us to follow it through.”