Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Chiefs not happy with just getting to the final
ENGLAND’S dominant club, Exeter Chiefs, will aim to conquer Europe today in the latest stage of what boss Rob Baxter describes as “a fantastic journey”.
Eleven years to the day since the Chiefs beat Birmingham & Solihull in a low-key Championship game at Sharmans Cross Road, they will contest European club rugby union’s biggest prize in front of an expected global television audience of six or seven million.
Standing between them and the Champions Cup in Exeter’s first European final are French side Racing 92.
It will all unfold behind closed doors at Ashton Gate in Bristol, with Baxter’s men aiming to follow Bath, Northampton, Leicester, Wasps and Saracens as English European champions – and a Chiefs victory would maintain their domestic and European trophy double hopes ahead of next weekend’s Gallagher Premiership final against Wasps.
“It feels a fantastic journey and it has been great, but the important things are what we do every day, every week and every month,” Baxter said. “That’s what we have got right as a club and there is a huge group of people who have had a massive involvement in everything.
“Hopefully, if we can fast-forward six months and we have got full stadiums and you can walk through the lobby at Sandy Park and the
Heineken Cup is there in the cabinet, it elevates everything else you can do moving forward.
“One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt is that we don’t want to sit here and talk about ‘Isn’t it great that we have got to the final of the Champions Cup and we can go there and give it a go, and whatever happens it will be a brilliant season’. We have moved way beyond that.
“We are not running around with big smiles on our faces being silly because we have got to a European final for the first time. We are locking down into what it will take to win it.
“Obviously, we have had to win a lot of big games to get here, and I still harp back to us actually winning promotion to the Premiership (in 2010) as one of the key, fundamental steps, and it always will be.”
England wing Jack Nowell has recovered from a foot injury and starts in an Exeter team showing one change from their semi-final win against Toulouse. Flanker Jacques Vermeulen features instead of Sam Skinner, who is on the bench.
Exeter Chiefs: Hogg; Nowell, Slade, Whitten, O’Flaherty; J Simmonds (capt), Maunder; Hepburn, Cowan-Dickie, Williams, Gray, Hill, Ewers, Vermeulen, S Simmonds. Replacements: Yeandle, Moon, Francis, Skinner, Kirsten, Hidalgo-Clyne, Steenson, Devoto.
Bristol Bears’ Challenge Cup final against Toulon last night concluded after the deadline.