Baxter has a blast despite Exeter win
EXETER head coach Rob Baxter was far from impressed with the performance of his side, despite the 30-25 bonus-point win over Sale.
The Chiefs had overturned a 19-5 deficit to run out deserved winners but, despite scoring four tries from Kai Horstmann, Olly Woodburn, Don Armand and Luke Cowan-Dickie, Exeter were nowhere near their best in this Aviva Premiership contest.
Henry Slade completed the hosts’ scoring at Sandy Park by adding two conversions and two penalties but Baxter said: “I can’t be happy at us playing at that level and we need to shake ourselves up for the remainder the season.
“We were disrupted in the first half and threw careless passes, which made it difficult for ourselves – and had we not scored just before interval the mountain may have been too high to climb.
“Perhaps after winning at Leicester we were riding on the crest of the wave but this was a real wake-up call for us as Sale have worried us down here in the past and we weren’t ready for them.
“We had the Anglo-Welsh Cup to think about in the interim and perhaps we got the wrong focus by tilting too much towards those games.”
Sale director of rugby Steve Diamond said: “I’m disappointed we didn’t win.”