Gallagher PREM teams ranked in comparative form table after 5 rounds

Good one year, bad the next seems to be a habit that Exeter are falling into of late.

Hit hard by injuries, particularly in the back three, and with new recruits still bedding in, the Chiefs are well off the pace compared to where they were last year.

After five rounds last season, Rob Baxter’s men had pocketed 18 points, which gave them the foundation they needed to build on and make the Gallagher PREM final.

This time around, Exeter have just 10 points, a shortfall of eight points, the biggest of any of the 10 teams when comparing like for like fixtures to last season.

In rounds two and three, Exeter matched the number of points they picked up last season away to Bath (two) and at home to Newcastle Red Bulls (five), but in the other fixtures they’re in deficit.

At home to Gloucester, Exeter got a bonus-point win in 2025/26, but they only managed a losing point when they met the resurgent Cherry & Whites in round one.

In round four, Exeter failed to get anything from their 20-7 derby defeat at Bristol, having collected a losing bonus point at Ashton Gate in October 2025.

And only two points were taken instead of all five in the round five clash at home to Harlequins, a dispiriting 31-28 defeat, having beaten the same opposition 38-0, 12 months earlier.

“The biggest shift, if you just go game by game, is that we lost to Gloucester and we lost to Quins,” said Chiefs Director of Rugby Rob Baxter.

“In these two home games, we picked up results. I think we picked up two 5-point wins. We’ve picked up three points from those games.

“So, instead of picking up 10, we’ve picked up three. That’s the difference.

“I don’t mind saying, I think that Gloucester game caught us, as we had a short pre-season.

“And the availability issues we had going in right at the start, I think they hampered us a little bit. We weren’t good enough against Gloucester, and they were good.

“Outside of that, we’ve actually been tracking along on par for last season in our other results. But then, obviously, with the Quins game, we didn’t make it go our way at the end.

“If we had made that into a win and picked up the points there, then we’re pretty much tracking not far off where we were, other than the Gloucester game. But that’s what’s hurt us is those two home games. And that’s the bit we’ve got to just got to keep working out.

“Like I say, we’re not miles off, but we’re not, we’re not firing individually or collectively, and we’re not quite aligned to the level I would like. And that’s something for us to work on over the next few weeks.”

Bath, the team Exeter beat in the play-offs to make last year’s final, are also well behind where they were in 2025/26 after the first five rounds of the season.

Losing two of their biggest ball carriers, Alfie Barbeary and Thomas du Toit, has hit Bath hard, while their lengthy injury list has hampered continuity.

Bath kicked off with two bonus-point wins, matching their maximum return from the away matches against Harlequins and at home to Exeter last season.

However, since then they have fallen off the pace, losing badly at Gloucester, when they had won there convincingly the year before, and only picking up one point instead of two the round before at Northampton, where they were beaten 71-48.

Bath have dropped outside of the top four for the first time in three years as a result of these failures. But, even so, Head of Rugby Johann van Graan believes they are still well positioned to have a tilt at the title.

Talking to Somerset Live, he said: “We need to make sure we get our five points at home. We’ve played two games at home in this block (vs Exeter and Sale) and have 10 points.

“Look, all things considered, we’re on 16 points, five points away from first, and that is satisfying.”

While Exeter and Bath have been shadows of their former selves, Gloucester and Harlequins are sides transformed.

Comparing like-for-like fixtures from last season to this, both clubs are in ‘profit’ to the tune of seven points.

Playing for a new set of coaches, Harlequins were slow to get going and were actually a point in deficit in the first two rounds.

But since then, Jason Gilmore’s men have bagged two points at Sale, when they got none the year before, and five in bonus-points wins at home to Saracens and away to Exeter, fixtures that only yielded them four points in 2025/26.