Chiefs side to face La Rochelle

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter says a different “mental challenge” awaits his players as they prepare to tackle European Challenge Cup opponents La Rochelle for the second time inside a week at Sandy Park tomorrow (3pm).

The Aviva Premiership club maintained pole position in Pool Two of this season’s competition as they collected a five-point maximum in their 36-10 victory at the Stade Marcel Deflandre.

However, Baxter knows their Top 14 rivals will arrive in Devon this weekend not only desperate to avenge last week’s defeat, but at the same time keep their own qualification hopes alive with just two rounds of competition left in the New Year.

That said, overcoming the Chiefs - particularly on home soil - will be no easy feat for Patrice Collazo’s men. In recent weeks Exeter have accrued seven straight victories, including claiming the scalps of sides such as Northampton Saints, Wasps and Saracens in the Premiership, as well as Connacht, Bath and Gloucester in various Cup battles.

“The challenge is that there’s an assumption from everybody that La Rochelle will see themselves as being out of contention and will just come over here to fulfil the fixture,” warned Baxter. “That’s always a worry because, in these two-legged games, most times a team wins the first leg well they find it a different story second time around.

“The mental challenge is so different. The winning team feel they’ve done the hard part of the job, the team that lost are a little bit annoyed, don’t have much to lose and come out and put in a big, emotional performance to prove they were disappointed with the week before.

“It’s a tough challenge but a challenge we’ve coped well with in the last few weeks – we’ve put in big performances and backed them up with a big performance the week after. We’ve talked about that this week.”

Baxter added: “People can say that La Rochelle aren’t going to care too much, but it’s very rare that players who are playing top-level rugby in England, France or wherever are like that.

“I’m assuming they’ve got a group of players who are all desperate to be in their Top 14 side, and have got a lot of pride in playing for La Rochelle. That makes every opportunity they get a big one for them. I am expecting some kind of backlash that they do not want to concede another four tries and they will want to go away and beat a Premiership side. That means it could be a very tough and physical challenge.”

In France, though, it was the tempo the Chiefs brought to the game that caused La Rochelle problems and Baxter will no doubt want more of the same from his team in this latest match-up.

“Because we took good tempo to them, that’s why they struggled in certain areas,” Baxter continued. “However, their weight in the scrums and in the mauls, coupled with some individual collisions was probably greater than anything we would probably face in the Premiership.

“That, I suppose, is one of the differences between the English and the French games. Again, though, we are aware it will be physical and that we will have to work hard.

“As I’ve said before, this is what being in the Premiership and Europe is all about, you are involved in big games and top competitions, so we want to show that this is very important to us. Right now we have a group of players who are keen and raring to go. Some of them are desperate to play, others are just looking forward to playing at Sandy Park again, so we’re expecting the squad we have picked to do a jon as it’s important for us because we want to keep ourselves top of the group.”

Connacht’s bonus point win at home to Bayonne last weekend means the Irish province remain hot on the heels of the Chiefs - and with just one point separating the two sides at the halfway stage, Baxter and his players know they can ill afford any kind of slip-up on home soil.

“Because the season has gone so well for us, every game becomes a bigger game,” said Baxter. “Every game we win makes the next one bigger because there is so much more at stake, particularly when it comes to the Premiership. Every game will feel like it’s driving us into the top four and keeping us there - or it will feel like we are letting it slip through our fingers a little bit.

“When you are there, you want to fight to stay there. Right now we are in the top four and top of our two Cup groups, but how hard are we prepared to work to stay there? The next four weeks will show a lot because all of them will be tough games.”

As expected, Baxter has again rotated his playing options with no doubt one eye on next week’s testing Premiership trip to Sale Sharks. Into the pack come Greg Bateman, Alex Brown and Don Armand, whilst behind Dave Lewis and Ceri Sweeney form a new half-back pairing with Fetu’u Vainikolo and Phil Dollman both starting in the back three.

15 Phil Dollman
14 Fetu’u Vainikolo
13 Adam Hughes
12 Ian Whitten
11 Tom James
10 Ceri Sweeney
9 Dave Lewis
1 Brett Sturgess
2 Greg Bateman
3 Alex Brown
4 Mitch Lees
5 Ryan Caldwell
6 Don Armand
7 Ben White
8 Kai Horstmann (capt)

16 Elvis Taione
17 Ben Moon
18 Carl Rimmer
19 Damian Welch
20 James Scaysbrook
21 Haydn Thomas
22 Henry Slade
23 Sireli Naqelevuki