Rob Baxter has praised the character shown by his young Exeter Chiefs side after their dramatic win over Munster in the Champions Cup at Sandy Park on Sunday.
Baxter's inexperienced team found themselves trailing 19-10 at half-time and 24-13 with an hour gone against a clinical Munster side. But late tries from Ross Vincent, Jack Dunne and Henry Slade saw them record a bonus-point win at Sandy Park.
It marks their second landmark victory in as many weeks, fresh from the 19-18 win in Toulon a week earlier, and their highest-ever score against Irish opposition. For long spells, it looked as though Munster had managed to stifle Exeter's aggressive attacking game, but Baxter's players showed true grit to come out on top with a late rally.
"You need a massive amount of character (to win like that)," the director of rugby said after the game. "There was one stage in the second half when I saw us walking back under the posts after Munster had scored and I looked and thought ‘are we shot here?’ because of our body language.
"That’s what takes the character. To look at each other and double up and think ‘we’ll force our moments in this game and we’ll stick together’ – that’s the character these guys are starting to show and the hard work they are starting to show.
"We didn’t look like we were the team flagging at the end and that is down to two things. I thought all our bench were great today, all of them. They made a definite contribution. The other thing was how we grew in that second half of the game."
There were still nervy moments in the closing stages of the game - not least when Harvey Skinner was penalised for a high shot on opposite number Jack Crowley. But, despite pressure from TMO Cédric Marchat, referee Matheiu Raynal stuck with his decision of just a penalty.
It allowed Exeter to see out the rest of the game, before Slade wrapped things up with a late intercept try.
"You’re sitting there thinking ‘jeez, this is going to be a yellow card and a penalty really late in the game’ but I actually though the referee dealt with it really, really well – despite the TMO never-endingly trying to make it worse than it was," Baxter said.
"I’m really liking the way referees are saying ‘look, we’re not getting clear head contact here’. We shouldn’t be trying to referee head contact when there isn’t any head contact. I’ve said it loads of times, it will work for us and against us but we don’t need to be trying to reduce the number of players on the field. We should be looking for mitigation because that’s what the players want.
"We need to remember that the players are the guys who understand that the injuries will be on them. We need to work with what the players want and the players don’t want guys sent off for just rugby incidents. I think that part of it was good."
