Western Morning News (Saturday)
Baxter wary of challenge from resurgent Leicester
EXETER Chiefs will be looking to continue their pursuit of Bristol Bears at the top of the Gallagher Premiership when they play host to Leicester Tigers in at Sandy Park this afternoon (KO 2.30pm).
Fresh from a hard-fought comefrom-behind victory over Harlequins last time out, Chiefs’ director of rugby Rob Baxter is looking for more of the same from his side against a Tigers outfit which claimed their first Premiership away win in almost two years with a 20-14 success at Gloucester.
For a second successive week, the defending champions had to overturn a 13-point deficit before securing what Baxter himself described as a ‘fantastically valuable’ four points.
“Our problem is not so much can we win the second 40, it’s more how to make sure we don’t lose in the first 40,” said Baxter this week. “At the moment, we are creating pressure scenarios in the first half that we can certainly deal with better.
“Some of the things we are doing we can easily eradicate from our game and if we improve our error count, even by 20 or 30%, the game could be much different.
“That said, I can’t fault the resolve and the fighting spirit of our lads.
“What they showed to me was that we have a team who are prepared to work very hard to breakdown the opposition and who want to scores tries to win a game of rugby. Of course, we didn’t make it easy for ourselves, but we showed we were willing to work incredibly hard to secure four fantastically valuable points against the team who are third in the roster.”
With Baxter still shy of his international stars on Six Nations duty, his back division selection has been further hampered with ankle injuries to Ian Whitten and Tom Hendrickson, as well as further hamstring concerns over winger Alex Cuthbert.
It means the Chiefs have been forced into change for tomorrow’s fixture, welcoming Ollie Devoto and Harvey Skinner into a new-look midfield, while new dad Olly Woodburn fills the void left by Cuthbert on the right wing.
Other changes see Jack Maunder given the nod at scrum-half in place of Stu Townsend, Ben Moon – impressive off the bench in the last two games – starting at loosehead with Alec Hepburn dropping down to the bench and Sean Lonsdale coming into the second-row in place of Sam Skinner, who has been called up by Scotland for their clash with Italy at Murrayfield.
On the bench, there are recalls to the match-day squad for Don Armand and Josh Hodge, as well as first-ever involvement for academy youngster Dan John.
The Tigers – themselves brimming with confidence after recent results – will pose a creditable threat in this latest outing, where they will be bidding to end a six-game losing streak to the Chiefs.
“Going to Gloucester and winning last time out was a big result for them,” said Baxter. “So they are starting to gain that little bit of momentum.
“I’ve no doubt we will be challenged again this weekend by a Leicester side who will see this as a great opportunity themselves to step up where they want to be. They are not going to be backward in wanting to come an established Premiershipwinning team again. I just don’t want us to be a stepping stone for them to do that.”
Today’s game is live on BT Sport Extra 1HD from 2:30pm.