Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter didn’t hold back on his players after they went down to a 36-19 defeat to Bath in the Premiership.
The loss leaves the Chiefs sitting eight points off the play-off spots with just three matches remaining, as time looks to be running out for the Devon outfit.
Going down to strugglers Bath in such a manner clearly irked Baxter as post-match he suggested that changes were in the offing ahead of this weekend.
Champions Cup this week
Exeter will switch their focus from Premiership to Champions Cup duty when they return to training on Tuesday, facing Montpellier in the round-of-16.
And after leaking five tries at the Rec, it seems Baxter has lost patience with some of his players, with their season on a knife edge as April approaches.
Rob Baxter looks ready to make changes after that loss. #BATvEXE pic.twitter.com/X8tU7dYT3f
— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) March 26, 2023
“We have to have a good look at each other because we are killing each other,” said Exeter Chiefs’ director of rugby following another defeat on the road.
“We can’t perform as a team because individually we’re killing each other. I’m at that stage when I am almost thinking we have got to change the personnel.
“We have got guys now who are champing at the bit and expecting to be there or thereabouts as players move on next season, and I just said to the lads ‘the power you have got as a player is your performance’.
“They perform and it shows how much they want things and how good they want to be. The power I have got is selection.
“I thought ‘do I talk honestly about today or say we have had a bad day at the office, a big day next week, last 16 of Europe, bang that in and it is a quarter-final’, but I just could not say that to the players.
Errors frustrate Baxter
“I said ‘I am going to have to be honest, I don’t really care about morale for next week, that was poor’.
“We have come away to the team that is bottom of the Premiership – that is not taking anything away from Bath. They grew, and I was expecting us to grow across the 80 minutes.
“It never looked like we were going to make the game about us. It was a litany of errors.
“We have got a lot to work on in a week, and the most important thing is how the players turn up on Tuesday. Did we look like a good team today? I don’t think we can say any player had a good game in any facet.”
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