Director of Rugby Rob Baxter was left delighted with the way his Exeter Chiefs side showed character and dug in on a difficult afternoon in Cardiff as they rounded off pre-season with a 33-28 win over Cardiff Rugby.
Having conceded two tries inside ten minutes, Baxter’s men fought their way back to take control of the contest and establish a lead before a late try narrowed the margin of victory.
With a win over Bristol Bears last Saturday to get their PREM Rugby Cup campaign off to a winning start, Chiefs welcomed some of their international stars back into the fold for the friendly. Greg Fisilau, Stephen Varney and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso all among those who scored tries as Exeter are in a strong place ahead of the season opener next Saturday.
"Massively pleasing," Baxter said post-match of the win and the whole afternoon. "I think it had the best things about that kind of test of character you really wanted to to see because our travel up was a little disrupted. We kind of arrived maybe maybe five or 10 minutes late, which I know is not a great deal, but it just kind of I think it knocks off our stride a little bit.
"And then we came out onto the field and actually there's there's a pretty strong wind blowing the length of the field and it was raining pretty heavily as well when it game kicked off and it's wrong of us to have been put on the back foot like we did, but within the space of minutes we're two tries down and you can see the lads having to look at each other and go 'well what are we going to do here, we're going to have to step up'.
"We just we had a good look at each other. We rolled our sleeves up and we pretty much control the rest of the first half rest of the first half into tough conditions. Second half again, we took control early in the second half and and that really I think is the tail of the tape for me a little bit because I think if that would been a a 23 man squad game, I think we'd have probably stayed in control for the rest of the game but then obviously changes start to happen from both sides and the game gets disrupted and I think that kind of probably hurt us more than it hurt Cardiff."
Taine Basham forced his way over for the first try, and only a minute later, centre Ben Thomas spotted space in the Chiefs 22 and showed a turn of pace to burst through and touch down, which Callum Sheedy converted. But Chiefs turned things around and were leading by half-time.
Fisilau was the first to score from a driving maul. Then Harvey Skinner went over, before Varney's solo effort, running the ball in from the halfway line to score, which Henry Slade converted.
Moments into the second half, Joe Bailey crashed over from close range, but as a raft of reinforcements were brought on, Cardiff closed the deficit when the might of their pack drove the ball over the line from a maul.
But immediately Chiefs added to their tally as Zack Wimbush set up Feyi-Waboso as the England winger could get his try. Daf Hughes went over after repeated phases at close range to the Chiefs line to close the gap to five, but Exeter held on for the win.
"We used the bench quite a lot and we had players playing out of position and although it broke our rhythm up a little bit, it created that scenario in the end where we had to battle for a win and we showed a great deal of character," Baxter added. "So I think at both ends of the game, we had to kind of dig in and hold on and I think to come away and do that on the day as we've done it for me feels really satisfying.
"Sometimes that's just a really good test of character and you know I'm really impressed with the lads and we got a group of men there who are going to stand up for each other and going to be tough this season. And if I know that from today's game, I'm happy with that alone."
Baxter Delighted as Chiefs Show Character in Cardiff Win