By Louis Chapman-Coombe
Exeter Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter has called for a much-improved performance from his side this week following a heavy defeat to Sale Sharks. The Chiefs were put to the sword on Easter Sunday, going down 41-5 to a rampant Sale outfit. But this weekend they have the perfect chance to respond, in a European knockout tie against West Country rivals Bath.
Speaking to the media ahead of the clash, Baxter detailed his desire to see a performance his team can be proud of, but he also described how he wanted his team to embrace the occasion.
“We’ve got to perform better than we did in the last week,” he said. “But at the same time, we have got to be excited about the fact that it’s a knockout game in Europe, we’re going to be here at Sandy Park in front of a sell-out crowd and we’ve got to have a hope that that brings a level of performance out of us that we can be a lot prouder of than we produced at Sale.”
He added: “Ultimately that’s what we’ve always asked the lads to do week by week is just make sure they’ve walked back into the changing room happy with what they’ve done individually and collectively; and actually, the result is the result, we can’t ask for much more than that.”
Exeter have made Sandy Park into a fortress in recent seasons. Until their last-gasp defeat to Northampton Saints in January, Exeter had won 23 on the spin at home, and still boast a fantastic record of just one home loss in 18 months. This run also included two Champions Cup home knockouts against Montpellier and the Stormers on their run to the semi-finals last season.
Home advantage in European competition is clearly important; and Baxter touched on what playing at Sandy Park should do for his new-look Chiefs side: “We’ve beaten a lot of the teams here, at Sandy Park, not that many teams have come here and won. We’ve got to follow that through. We’ve got to lay it on the line. It is a do or die game, it’s an all or nothing. You’re either in the competition or you’re out of it now at this stage.”
Exeter have the perfect tonic to cure their Sale hangover this weekend, and they will also likely see come key men return to the fold with Baxter confirming frontline forwards Ethan Roots and Rusi Tuima are available for selection following their omissions last weekend, and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso also came through the Sale game unscathed after his spell on the sidelines with concussion.