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'Looking at their body language, I questioned whether they were shot' - Rob Baxter
By PA
Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter feels his side showed “massive character” in overturning a nine-point deficit to defeat Munster 32-24 and post a second narrow Champions Cup success in as many weeks.
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The hosts were comfortably second best after 65 minutes, trailing 24-13, with the visitors having outscored them by four tries to one at Sandy Park.
However, two tries in two minutes turned the game on its head with Henry Slade’s last-gasp interception try robbing Munster of a losing bonus point, which puts in jeopardy their hopes of qualifying for the next round of the competition.
Dan Frost, Jack Dunne and Ross Vintcent and Slade scored Exeter’s tries, with Slade converting three and adding two penalties.
Tom Ahern, Calvin Nash, Antoine Frisch and Shane Daly scored Munster’s tries, with Jack Crowley kicking two conversions.
Baxter said: “When they scored just after half-time, I looked at our players behind the posts and looking at their body language, I questioned whether they were shot, but they went on to show massive character.
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“We had to stay in the fight and take our opportunities as Munster have great tradition and were here to win.
“They adopted a great attacking policy and it nearly succeeded in beating us.
“We defended the rucks too compactly as we had four men within inches of it defending nothing and our backs didn’t defend with sufficient width.
“We took too long to work that out but we succeeded in doing that by the second half when we also elected to kick more.
“We took three points to stay in contention and then took our chances to win the game.”
Slade kicked the match-winning conversion last weekend to give Exeter a 19-18 win at Toulon, and once again Slade was the hero with a match tally of 17 points.
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“He’s just loving it and he’s training like a young man and playing like he was when he was first called up by England,” Baxter said of the 30-year-old.
It was a different story in the Munster camp, who were on the wrong end of a number of refereeing calls.
Harvey Skinner was perhaps fortunate to escape a yellow card for a high challenge on Crowley while it took endless TMO replays before Slade’s try was awarded.
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The writer here ignores the fact that, following on from not taking the penalty kick, the All Blacks did manage to score a try a few minutes later. Not directly from the penalty awarded, but it is speculation to say that had they opted to take the koi they would have won. Even if they kicked it, which was no guarantee, they would still be trailing and would have had to start again at half-way.
Go to commentsI would be surprised if Sales Opoku Fordjour and Northampton’s Tommy Freeman are not in the team, Anthony Watson is also one that could go on the wing. One thing I must say is that the front 3 will get destroyed against a team like South Africa.
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