'Slap in the face': Rob Baxter's candid admission on arguably Exeter's darkest day

The last time Exeter Chiefs played Gloucester at Kingsholm in April, it resulted in a record 79-17 defeat, their heaviest in the top flight, and triggered one of the toughest weeks in the club’s recent history.

Gloucester scored 13 tries in a club-record win, while for the Chiefs, it surpassed their 55-12 loss to a Danny Cipriani-inspired Sale in April 2014, serving as the catalyst for change at Sandy Park.

Rob Baxter made his return to front-line coaching, and the club sacked head coach Rob Hunter after only four games in charge, while attack coach Ali Hepher, who had only just been demoted to head coach, also left.

Hepher has since returned to the club in an academy role, and they will field five debutants tonight. Joseph Dweba, Stephen Varney and trialist Harry Ascherl all start, along with Andrea Zambonin and Charlie Chapman.

Baxter admits that sometimes you have to reach rock bottom to start climbing again, and that’s what happened earlier this year when Tony Rowe was pictured dishing out a few home truths to the squad.

“Was it the hardest day? It’s hard to say. It was tough, with what happened afterwards, that probably made it doubly tough. The coaching group spent a lot of time together and enjoyed a lot of success together.

“Obviously, we were friends and we had been through a lot together. So, if you talk about the whole week, was it tough? Yes, on its own, was it the single toughest game? It was one of them without doubt.

“But it is what it is. All you can do post it now, is to look back and say it created a fresh start point for us, and we have got to make the most use of that as we can.

“Whatever you do in sport, you have to turn every circumstance to your advantage as much as possible. You spend months lamenting it, or you get on as quickly as you can and move forward.

“To be fair to the players, we moved forward pretty quickly, and we probably put in two of our best performances of the season in our next two games against Harlequins and Sale.

“We were within inches of the try line of knocking Sale out of the top four, which would have happened if we hadn’t dropped the ball on the try line.

“Sometimes you need a real good slap in the face to say this is not good enough. We are jogging along when we need to put our foot down,” Baxter told RugbyPass this week.