By Nigel Walrond

EXETER Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter is delighted with the progress the club have made in Europe this season.

Prior to this campaign, they had only ever reached the quarter-finals of the Heineken Champions Cup once, and that was in 2016, when they unbelievably managed to finish top of their pool with only 16 points, after winning just three of their six matches.

However, the 33-14 victory over French side La Rochelle saw them reach the last eight for not only the second time in the club’s history, but also gain their first home quarter-final.

And they did it in style by not losing a single pool game, securing five wins, and a draw at Glasgow Warriors. The Chiefs will play fellow Premiership side Northampton Saints at Sandy Park on the first weekend of April, with the exact date still to be confirmed, after EPRC gave them special dispensation to stage the game at that venue despite it not having the required 15,000 capacity. It is currently just under 14,000.

‘We have never had qualification in our own hands really going into the final round of matches before,’ Baxter told me. ‘The year we qualified, we sneaked through by winning the pool with only 16 points, and we have almost doubled that number of points this year (27).

‘There are various reasons for it. I think we are a better team, we are more mature, we have dealt with pressure better, we understand we deserve to be here and understand what we have to throw into these games, and it is an accumulation of things.

‘A couple of years of doing well in the Premiership means you have a better seeding, and by doing that you end up in a different kind of group.

‘This is the first time we have actually been in the top part of the draw, and you can see the benefit that gives you in the type of pool you get.

‘To have got a number of things right over an extended period of time, and a few consistent seasons, gives you that quality of draw, and that allows you to really go after games.

‘To get La Rochelle away from home in really good form, we really went after things, and then that set us up to drive in the next game at home, and we have got a lot of things right this season so far.

‘They don’t always drop for you every season, but this season, over an accumulation of work and things we have done, we have got on the front foot and we are going okay, and we have now got to drive hard to make the most of this opportunity.’

The game itself was a bit of a cliffhanger in the first half, with La Rochelle holding the Chiefs to 14-14 at the interval, before a few strong words at half-time had the desired effect, and the second-half performance from Exeter was simply stunning.

‘Great credit to the players, they have turned round at half-time under a bit of pressure after maybe not a great start and it was 14-14, and we just turned it on in spades in the second half and forced those tries that created five points for us and gave us a great chance of being one of the top seeds in the competition and a home quarter-final,’ said Baxter.

Exeter were hindered in the opening 40 minutes by what many felt was a controversial penalty try after Stuart Hogg was yellow carded for a deliberate knock-on, but Baxter said: ‘The trouble is things like that happen when you are not on your game.

‘I had no complaints about the yellow card. My complaints are with the fact we haven’t defended. We were looking remarkably soft in defence compared to how we have been as a team.

‘When we played La Rochelle in France, we were climbing all over them, and we weren’t doing that in the first half on Saturday, and once we decided to be a bit more physical, and really up ourselves and get edgy, and a bit more emotional, the whole game changed, and a great credit to the players for the way they played in that second half.’

The Simmonds brothers played a starring role in the performance, with No.8 Sam Simmonds scoring two tries, and fly-half brother Joe slotting four out of five conversions, giving him a stunning record in all competitions this season of 53 successful kicks at goal out of 55 attempts.

‘They were both great again, particularly in the second half,’ said Baxter.

‘Sam grew through the game, for a back row he is a real pocket rocket and Simmo (Joe) is growing in maturity.

‘My only fault with him was maybe not taking a bit more charge in the first half. We probably overplayed and didn’t quite pay La Rochelle enough respect in the first half and it was a bit greasy out there and I thought we should have been going for a bit more territory, a bit more pressure, and build some moments, and I would have preferred that.

‘We overplayed a bit, got a bit side to side and lost our direction a little bit, but the important thing is we keep coming through these tests, because that is the challenge, and we have done that remarkably well.’

Cornwall-born hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie gave another immense performance ahead of the selection of the England squad for the Six Nations Championship, in which he was not surprisingly included.

‘He was clearly man of the match and I think there were times in the first half where, the truth is, he held the team together,’ admitted Baxter.

‘A couple of turnovers, a couple of incredible tackles, he was the kind of guy who kept La Rochelle on the back foot at times, and he is the form hooker in England going into the Six Nations, and I hope he gets rewarded with some starts, because it would be great to see him getting the England number two shirt for a while.’

The win was overshadowed by the news of Saracens’ relegation from the Premiership at the end of the season, but Baxter said he was glad it was now out in the open and everyone could concentrate on the rest of the season.

‘Now the official decision has been made and it is out there, the good thing is we can move on,’ he commented.

‘The Heineken Cup isn’t just about Saracens, there are 19 other clubs in it, and the same in the Premiership, there are 11 other clubs in it, and at least now we can move beyond it.

‘They have been found out to have been doing what they’ve been doing for a number of years, and the punishment has ended up being this severe because of how badly they have been found to be cheating, and one thing can’t happen without the other, and there is a reality there.

‘But at least now a decision has been made and we can move on and we can look forward to enjoying the rest of the season and the competitions that we are in.’

He added: ‘When you look at the regulations and the degrees of punishment, the one thing that it clarifies is the degree that they were paying outside the salary cap.

‘This hasn’t happened because it has been a few pounds. It is probably multiples of what any of us have ever thought really, and the punishment is what it is.’