Opposition view: Exeter 'took a step forward' in defeat at Saints
Director of rugby Rob Baxter believes his Exeter Chiefs side 'took a step forward' in their 30-24 defeat at Saints on Saturday evening.
Exeter battled back from 30-10 down to give themselves hope of a dramatic victory with two minutes to go.
But they couldn't quite find one final flourish against a Saints side who had been reduced to 14 men following Rory Hutchinson's yellow card for a high tackle.
Despite the fact his team were eventually beaten, Baxter was upbeat about his side's performance after seeing them dominate long periods of the game at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens.
“We have thought so much about targeting getting something from away games and playing in a way that gives us the best opportunity to do that," said Baxter, who saw his side suffer a late 17-14 loss at home to Leicester Tigers last weekend.
“We got large parts of that right and we spent a lot of time in the right areas of the field.
“We are still patchy on our individual error count, but I think collectively as a team we took a step forward.
“I think for a lot of the breakdown problems we can take responsibility for and some of it is fairly simple, and that’s the frustrating thing.
“We are forcing an awful lot that we should be able to let happen if we were a confident side, but that said, we have taken some pretty big steps forward from last week’s game against Leicester.”