Exeter Chiefs this season have proved that their Premiership crown bears no burden on their performances, instead they wear it with the conviction of champions.
A group with little to no regard for star players or star plays instead immersed in their ethos that oozes solidarity and places paramount importance on the culture that works so well for them on and off the pitch.
Taking that final step at Twickenham last May changed nothing but the outside perception of this Devon side. Yes they were now champions of England and perhaps had a little more swagger in their strut but it was primarily for show.
Rob Baxter was not about to veer from the formula that had bought so much success to the team. They have acquitted themselves like a side accustomed to lifting trophies and the pressure and expectation that coming alongside. It would be hard to know they were first time champions but that’s a credit to the morals that trickle down from the top of the club.
During the defence of their title Exeter have accumulated seven successive wins during the autumn and suffered three straight losses in February. Yet there was as much hysteria as there was talk of a mini crisis. Highs and lows across a campaign are appropriately managed in order to maintain a sense of calm and control.
The same calm and control was immediately exercised despite defeat on opening night to Gloucester at Kingsholm with the bigger picture always in mind. The transition of key personnel in key positions has occurred gradually without undermining the groups forward momentum and individuals once vital to the Devon outfit can now depart with their heir apparent present.
Thomas Waldrom will leave Sandy Park after four years this summer. The try-scoring number eight has been integral to everything Exeter have achieved in recent times but in Sam Simmonds they have a ready made replacement. Not so much in terms of size, the newly capped England international has been mocked by Eddie Jones for his slight build, but in terms of influence.
His brother Joe has slotted into the fly-half position once owned by Gareth Steenson. The Irishman has folk hero status on the south coast but at 34-years-old his days are coming to a conclusion. Simmonds was named the Premiership player of the month for March; justifiable praise and recognition for his performances. A match winning kicking display at the Rec to see out a tight game proved he has the bottle.
That contest in Bath showed Exeter for what they are: the definition of a team quickly becoming that outfit you just know will win if the game is within one score heading into the final quarter.
Time and time again this year they have proved, regardless of whether they play at Sandy Park or elsewhere, that they see out tight games. Testament to the group of individuals they have and the experiences they’ve shared that they are battle hardened in that department.
Saracens at Allianz Park were dispatched narrowly in November and Northampton were beaten at the death in February. In both contests Exeter went behind early on but stuck to a process. Exeter are a high phase team, they like to enjoy the lion’s share of possession even if it means going nowhere for periods of time. They know that their red zone conversion rate in the best in Europe and, provided they can set it up, have a driving maul that can verge on unstoppable.
By no means a side that grind out results though; the Chiefs have – on more than one occasion – played like champions. Their star quality most evident in the likes of Henry Slade, Jack Nowell and Nic White. As early as Round 4 they decimated the Wasps outfit who ran them close only a few months earlier. Leicester and Northampton were both out muscled, out thought and out done in the space of eight December days to stamp Exeter’s authority on the table.
Bath were torn apart in the opening 40 minutes when the two played in early December at Sandy Park only to restore so respectability to the score in the second-half. The same Bath side were also beaten in the Anglo-Welsh Cup Final at Kingsholm.
The starting XV that afternoon featuring a medley of players young and old, peripheral and integral but all understanding of the roles each position demands. The ethos filters down even further to the club’s ‘A’ team otherwise known as the Braves. In typically Exeter tradition they find themselves in their own final against Northampton’s equivalent outfit at the end of the month.
It seems wherever you look in and around the Sandy Park surroundings you see finals and semi-finals etched on the calendar. A credit to the club that all this success is achieved in similar fashion with individuals whose pathway to the top is attainable at Exeter.
By no means a club who breed an us against the world mentality, instead quite the opposite. Exeter appear everyone’s second favourite side for the way in which they acquit themselves. They are a model of consistency: you know the processes they have in place and what they plan to execute, stopping it though appears a tall tall order for those looking to knock them off their perch.
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