'It was hell for teams to play at Sandy Park, that has ebbed away'
Rob Baxter has recognised that Exeter need to tweak their mindset and remember that their best seasons are built on them being horrible to play against at home at Sandy Park. The Chiefs host defending champions Harlequins on Saturday in Devon having won just six of their eleven home matches in this season’s Gallagher Premiership, a downturn in fortunes that has seen them squeezed out of the playoffs for the first time since 2015.
In the six seasons in which they reached the semi-finals, going on to twice being crowned Premiership champions, the Exeter record at Sandy Park was daunting as they won 54 games, drew twice and were only beaten on ten occasions. Now they have suffered five losses in a single home campaign and face finishing at just breakeven – six wins and six losses – if Harlequins get the better of them this weekend.
It’s an aspect of the Chiefs’ results not lost on Baxter as he looks to remould a team that were crowned Premiership and European double champions in October 2020. Asked by RugbyPass for his reflections on what has happened to the Exeter form at Sandy Park in a 2021/22 campaign where they are currently seventh with one match remaining, the director of rugby said: “It’s really interesting.
“If I sat here with a group of players they would all come up with slightly different reasons, slightly different ideas so whatever I say will be agreed, disagreed on, not thought of the same by various people. What I would say to you is the thing that has probably drifted with that kind of success over the five, six years is you do start to get a group of players who crave the big games. I know that sounds really odd but I think a little bit of that crept in.
“If you look at some of our best performances this season they have definitely been away from home in bigger pressure games when the pressure is on, big challenges. There is nothing in our form this season that says we should have gone to Gloucester and won with a team that was fairly changed up against a team that was becoming fairly dominant in the Premiership and really targetting the top four and we go there and win. We also go and beat Northampton.
“That was what our season was about. Our season became like that this year and I could kind of feel it starting to happen last year. We were looking for bigger games instead of just focusing on the here and now. That is partly what I am talking about when you think about the DNA of the group. When we were coming through the Premiership in our early years what you do is target your home games and we used to actually enjoy getting after our away games.
“At the start of our time in the Premiership if we got a point away from home that was as good as winning the game and we would celebrate a point away from home like we had won the game wherever we were, genuinely. One of our best team celebrations on a bus that I can remember was coming home from Northampton in our first season in the Premiership and we got a bonus point.
“Chris Budgen scored a try at his old club in the last minute of the game that got us a losing bonus point and we strategised around doing that sort of thing – that was how we basically went away from home. A lot of that was in the DNA of the team that came through to become a top-four side, how hard and how focused you were on making every home game an impossible scenario for teams to win and then we used to just go after and enjoy and challenge ourselves in away games.
“It was hell for teams to play at Sandy Park and we had that in spades when we initially broke into the top four – it was one of the real things that kept us there and we kept hold of that for a number of years,” continued the long-serving Exeter boss. “Some of our best, massive performances were here at Sandy Park. Our semi-final against Toulouse in the European Cup will go down in a lot of ways as our best ever home performance. If you break it down, it was incredible.
“That has just ebbed away. What you have got to make sure is your mindset doesn’t become, ‘We’re quite good at home, those games will get won, we’re good at home’. These are just some of the little things that human nature just allows to happen. That might sound weird. I can stand in front of the team and go, ‘C’mon, we’re at home, this is what we build our season on and this is what it is all about’.
“But that actually has to be ingrained in you over a period of time, a ‘we know this has to happen’, and actually I think we do need to re-go through that process. You are 100 per cent right, we need to build that new group of players who understand if we are going to have a successful season we are very, very good at home first.
“Then we start working out how we pick up our points away from home and have real fun going after those points. If we come home the following week whatever happens away, we are horrible at home and teams don’t want to come here. These are all part of the conversations we have had and the players are very aware of them.”
Comments on RugbyPass
You have got to consider that if the situation was flipped and the French were held to a salary cap with no English equivalent, the English would laugh in their faces and tell them to get over it. As for Leinster (as a fan), the central contract system is a dream but is guilty of cutting out the other 3 provinces. At the end of the day, it comes across outside of the English border that the Premiership is drowning and trying to take everyone else with it rather than adapt. The English lose, the English want new rules. We've seen this repeat (and once it even led to the current Champions Cup) You make many good and informed points, but if the flip was on the other flop, it wouldn't be Rugby’s problem I suspect - it would be a French one.
13 Go to commentsSeems to have been a bright start but it tailed off. To win the big matches you have to get used to putting your foot on the throttle and your opponent’s necks in an 80 minutes performance which is what the All Blacks were renowned for. An example in the Women’s game is England v Ireland in the 6N match played at Twickenham in April. Watch on YouTube.
1 Go to commentsBobby has been a first grade bonehead since high school. Like a true Cape Tonian, his own reflection is more important than anything else.
1 Go to commentsNo comment on the textbook red card for Ramm that was just ignored? Amazing that
4 Go to commentsThese rule changes have been implemented with good intentions, but much like every other rule change focus on isolated symptoms instead of the root cause. If you cannot croc roll, and cannot risk any head contact with a front on clear out, it is not clear how you are supposed to lawfully clear someone out who is attempting a jackal. This will backfire massively and lead to substantially more kicking. Teams will simply not want to take the ball into contact. Or it will lead to even more dangerous methods to clear players out who are over the ball. I much prefer having the set piece on a 30 second shot clock over no scrum on a short arm infringement. Resets are not a problem in themselves, but 90 second water and tactics breaks before every scrum are a big problem. Trainers constantly coming on to the field to help players pull their socks up and delaying the game are a problem. DuPont law was a blight on the game and should have been changed the day after it was first implemented.
79 Go to commentsAh yes, the opinion of Andy Goode… Andy Goode, the man who knows what some of the Irish players said to Eben Etzebeth after the QF, better than what Eben himself knows. And, judging by this piece, the Grandmaster of clichés.
4 Go to commentsI think this is a fair view. As a South African I am concerned about the depowering of the scrum but let’s be honest, until the SA vs FRA quarter many people didn’t even know you could take a scrum from a free kick. As you say it’s going to come down to interpretation… until then we don’t really know how this is going to impact the game. That would lead to my own objection. Do the unknowns of changing a law outweigh the cons of said law. With such an obscure law that most people had never heard of, one that had never really had an impact on the game in the first place is it worth changing to invite so much uncertainty. Better the devil you know then the devil you don’t as it were…
4 Go to comments162 comments so far and counting. i didn't realize that rugby fans are on the way to join the football brothers. what is the point to share personal opinion only to get all this shi*? it seems IRB bosses are doing the great job by killing the spirit of the game both on and outside the pitch. too sad, indeed. btw, was there anything on eben’s point of view from the boys in green, who he mentioned?
164 Go to commentsJob done guys. Great win in a game where things can quickly go wrong.
1 Go to commentsAlex Sanderson fantastic coach and person .So pleased he has signed another contract great days ahead for Sale under his leadership.
1 Go to commentsAndy Goode cant kick to 12
164 Go to commentsDoxed himself. Great work Johnny. You are well suited to the Saders
1 Go to comments_Best game players _
1 Go to commentsWho's Jarrad Hohepa?
1 Go to commentsSo let me get this straight. Say you have the dominant scrum. You are 99% sure you can go for a scrum pushover try on the line to win the game. The opposition knows it too. They give away a silly tap kick instead. You are now not allowed to scrum. This is ridiculous! *%@ing the game up as usual! The fact that the attacking teams are not allowed to scrum from a held up over the line is just as ridiculous. Really world rugby? Careful people might start a rebel league called True Rugby or Real Rugby.
79 Go to comments12 subs during a game? How has that been allowed to happen NB? I hate when the game goes in this monopolistic direction closing up shop, it just becomes non sport. Btw have you seen anything of how Liam Coltman was tracking for Lyon? He has just signed to return to Otago though we have a couple of young hookers developing here. He was a popular gentle natured character down here and I’m glad to see him back but maybe he will be a mentor primarily?
13 Go to commentsGreat breakdown and the global politics always confuses me a little. The southern hemisphere seems to be left out a bit but I wouldn’t even know where to start with fixing it. Club challenge could be a step in the right direction
13 Go to commentsSince he coached Free state, from that time onwards, I maintained he was the coach for the Boks. A nice, no nonsense guy with an excellent brain, who gets results.
11 Go to commentswell - they only played against 14 men and had the TMO team on their side - and still should have lost… so actually that makes sense.
35 Go to commentsSouthern hemisphere Rugby is exactly that, boring. Northern Hemisphere Rugby is soooo much more entertaining and better with better players.
2 Go to comments