Simmonds Junior steals the show as Exeter tighten grip
Steenson in that, who not only helped him prepare very well this week, but laid a lot of foundations around him to allow him to play very well.
“I thought Nic White was very good and gave him a high-quality service from inside, and the guys outside him, and Henry Slade was very influential in this as well, gave him a lot of options, and our pack provided him with a lot of frontfootball.”
Exeter now lead the table by seven points, with five matches of the regular season remaining, and Baxter said: “A home semi-final is in our hands and we have got to decide to keep that.”
Both sides were missing players, Saracens without 18 through injury or unavailability, including a large number of their international contingent, and it is a shame that the two regularseason games between the two clubs have both fallen in the international windows. However, Mark Mccall, Saracens’ director of rugby, felt it was the injuries that particularly affected his side, especially as they lost experienced backs Brad Barritt (blow to the neck) and Chris Wyles (rolled ankle) at the start of the second half.
“We put in a lot of effort and I am much more pleased with the performance we put in this week than the one we did against Leicester last weekend,” said Mccall.
“We had a great chance in the second half, only trailing by two points at the break having played into the wind, but we lacked composure at crucial times, but that is what you get with some of the inexperience we had on the field.
“Exeter were more or less at full strength today and clearly we weren’t. We expected our interna-