Exeter boss Rob Baxter has ‘honest conversations’ after Leicester loss

Exeter boss Rob Baxter says there have been some “honest conversations” between his players and staff after the season-opening Premiership loss at home to Leicester.

Chiefs conceded a last-second try to lose 17-14 in a game which saw Exeter make a series of basic errors.

But Baxter says he is hopeful those mistakes will be a one-off as they prepare to travel to champions Northampton on Saturday.

“If someone says to me ‘am I really worried about it?’ – no because it’s game one,” Baxter told BBC Sport.

“If it was game four and I was saying the same things I would be [worried].

“So I think probably 50% of what we got wrong we can get right this weekend and still lose the game.

“But I’ve said to the lads, it’s not winning or losing the game this weekend that we really, really have to focus on – it’s actually that we’ve got a process in place that gives us a chance because it’ll allow us to play well.”

Baxter says there were some positives from the defeat – which was a first on the opening day of the season since his side lost at Leicester three years ago.

“Actually the reality is our physical effort in the game was as good as anything we did last season,” he added.

“There’s certainly no question about whether we worked hard, but we did make things very hard for ourselves and ultimately hard enough that we lost the game.

“Some of those things we can tidy up pretty quickly with some honest conversations.”