Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter has seemingly thrown in the towel ahead of the home Champions Cup quarter-final against the DHL Stormers on Saturday.
The Stormers outplayed Harlequins in a 32-28 victory in Cape Town to secure their place in the last eight of the Champions Cup.Meanwhile, Exeter were pushed all the way in a 33-33 extra-time stalemate against a Montpellier side that played most of the game with 14 men. The Premiership side progressed to the quarter-finals on tries scored.
Despite the Stormers having to take another long-haul flight to the northern hemisphere for the playoff at Sandy Park, Baxter said his Chiefs side would certainly go into the game as underdogs.Champions Cup website“They dealt with Harlequins pretty easily and Harlequins dealt with us pretty easily two weeks ago, so that’s it – game over.
“But that is quite a nice place to start from for us. We are not going to physically change much this week. We have just got to get our emotional batteries recharged.” Exeter will be looking to Sam Simmonds to lead the charge against a Springbok-powered Stormers pack after the England loose forward produced a man-of-the-match performance against Montpellier.“He very nearly scored a solo try that would have written the game off, and he was one of the guys who got his levels right for what he wanted to achieve today.
“We’ve had a few rollercoasters over the years. I am really pleased for the players. We’ve challenged them a bit this season around some of the highs and lows of performances.”