Seven heaven for the Chiefs

EXETER Chiefs coach Rob Baxter already has one eye on the end of the season after his side won convincingly 51-21 at Birmingham & Solihull.

The Sandy Park side have had a record start to a league season, with Saturday's Championship success their seventh win on the trot.

It was achieved by a very changed squad, with five players making their first appearances of the campaign at Sharmans Cross Road. Sean Marsden, Ben Moon and the Millers – Alan and Andy – all returned from injuries, while prop Chris Budgen was back after being away with the Army.

That saw several players fade and tire towards the end of the game and allow the Bees to score two tries in the last five minutes.

Baxter, however, was not worried by that as he wants his squad to be fresh for the play-offs.

"We turned up with the right attitude and that set the scene for the whole day," he said. "At times we looked like we could really rip free. We never quite did that but we still scored 50 points.

"We scored the points in a variety of ways; early on our backs looked incisive and we scored some textbook tries off set-piece and we also scored a couple of mauling tries.

"I was slightly disappointed that in the first 15 minutes of the game we got caught up in the way Birmingham wanted to play, but we got hold of that for 40 minutes during the middle of the game and made it about us.

"I'm slightly disappointed we conceded a couple of soft tries in the last 20 minutes, but by then we had a lot of tired players who are not match fit and haven't had much game time dropping off things a bit.

"If you are going to select a side like we did on Saturday you've got to accept that and take it on the chin, you can't expect a guy who hasn't played for six months to run out and play 80 minutes and not fade towards the end.

"I said to the guys after the game that it takes a lot of running to score 50 points, if we were cramping towards the end it's not an issue for me at the moment. The benefits of what we're doing won't be seen today, they'll be seen later in the season."

Despite Baxter not being best pleased with his side's start, they raced into a 15-0 lead thanks to tries from the returning Paul McKenzie and Budgen and a couple of kicks from Danny Gray.

Birmingham replied with a try from winger Mitch Culpin that Ronnie McLean converted, but Exeter responded immediately as Josh Matavesi darted through a hole in the defence and Gray bagged the extras.

The visitors had the try bonus point in the bag by half-time as Marsden crossed and Gray converted, giving Exeter a four-point cushion at the top of the table.

The Chiefs raced 48-7 ahead as captain Tommy Hayes, Richard Bolt and Haydn Thomas all crashed over but fatigue set in and the Bees hit back.

Rod Petty and then Cameron Mitchell scored tries that McLean converted. However, Gray had the final say with a late penalty to go past the 50-point mark.