Baxter and Chiefs are coolness personified in preparing for big game

IT may be the most high-profile match in Exeter Rugby Club’s 149year history, but in the build-up to today’s European Champions Cup final against French giants Racing 92, Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter was his usual cool, calm and collected self.

This afternoon, the club could take the final step in their incredible rise from English rugby’s second tier to establishing themselves the very top of the sport with victory at Ashton Gate against the star-studded French side.

Chiefs have been involved in big games before, but while this is the most high-profile, arguments can be made as to whether it is the biggest or most important.

The two-legged Championship play-off win against Bristol in May 2010 remains highly significant as it earned the club promotion to the top flight, unlocked doors and presented new, exciting opportunities.

Since then, the club have racked up four Premiership finals, winning one, although it could easily be more had they not faced a salary-cap breaching/cheating Saracens side in the other three. A fifth will follow against Wasps next week, so the club are well versed in preparing for such high-profile occasions.

However, there is now a change in approach and mentality to such games. Before, it was an achievement just to reach such landmark fixtures, Now, they are matches the club are desperate to win.

“I think the biggest lesson I have learnt as we have gone along is that we don’t want to sit here and say how amazing it is that we have got to the final of the European Cup,” Baxter said.

“We can go and give it a real go and it will be brilliant and whatever happens, it will have been a brilliant season. We have gone way beyond that.

“If it looks like the guys are cool, calm and collected, it’s because we feel we are getting our preparation right. We are not running around with big smiles on our faces being silly because we have got to the European Cup final for the first time, we are locking down into what it will take to win it and I think that is where we are.

“We are approaching it in a very normal way and the way I look at it is that our normal way is to go there and give it our best, we give ourselves the best chance of winning and our whole approach has to be around that.

“How do we get tactically and technically prepared? How do we get physically right? And then in the last few days, it’s about how we recharge those emotional batteries to be ready to go on Saturday. That process is one we have been involved with over a number of years and have got better and better at it, so that approach isn’t going to change.”

Baxter has often stated the importance of staying level headed. Not getting too high when you win, or being too low when you lose is a common expression in sport and the Chiefs are no different. But the 49-year-old admits that kick-off can’t come soon enough.

“I’m hugely excited,” Baxter added. “I am massively excited, I am massively nervous... I hate the fact it is a 4.45pm kick-off! I would have loved it if it had been a 3pm kick-off, or loved it even more if it had been 1pm because that morning can take a long time to get through, but that’s what sport is all about.

“The day we don’t get nervous and look at each other wondering what is going to happen that day is the day we should pack it all up because what are you doing it for otherwise?

“This is what it should be all about. It should be about challenging yourselves, trying to be a bit better than you have been before and that is what makes it massively exciting for us as a club.”