‘She was miles away’ – Rob Baxter ‘frustrated’ by controversial try in Bath defeat
Rob Baxter's side have lost all seven of their opening Premiership games
Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter has detailed his frustration at Bath’s contentious second try in his side’s 19-15 loss at the Rec, believing referee Sara Cox was “miles away”.
The defeat to their West Country rivals leaves the Chiefs bottom of the Premiership table, and marks their seventh-consecutive loss in the league this season. However, they still nabbed a losing-bonus point thanks to a late try from Greg Fisilau.
“Normally those don’t get given as tries”
The controversial try in question happened early into the second-half, as Bath back-rower Miles Reid burrowed his way over from short-range under heavy defensive pressure.
This then caused referee Cox to send it up to the TMO as a try, believing it to be grounded, however, Baxter feels it should have gone up as no-try.
“Of the refereeing decision, I was more frustrated by the on-field try decision (for Bath’s second try) as it’s never going to be turned over by TMO,” he told members of the media after the game.
“For me, and I’ve just said it to Sara (Cox), it looked like she was miles away and she’s the wrong side – that’s fine, I know you can get caught out so I’m not criticising that – but she said to me ‘I saw it grounded’ but I said by the time she gets there it could have been moved four or five times.”
Exeter were ahead 8-7 at the time of the try, however it led to a Bath resurgence in the second-half that ultimately saw them clinch the game 19-15, with the Chiefs only scoring through Fisilau in the 81st minute.
Baxter added: “You’ve got to see it in live time, otherwise, loads of things could have happened; and that was the frustrating thing for me because normally those don’t get given as tries. That, to me, was frustrating as it opened the game up at a time when it was very competitive and could have got edgy for Bath.”
“Was Manny ever really going to catch that”
Exeter were also involved in a controversial try decision themselves. Late into the second-half, Ben Spencer was sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on as Henry Slade looked to find Immanuel Feyi-Waboso in space; however, this was judged to not be denying a try-scoring opportunity.
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This certainly caused a stir on social media, particularly with the Exeter Chiefs faithful, but Baxter feels this was actually the right call.
“If I’m honest, I looked at it and thought ‘was Manny ever really going to catch that’. The angle I had I was a bit like ‘oh is that going behind him’, that’s the hard bit. I don’t want to sit here and comment on that.”
“Rekindled a bit of that fight”
There’s no denying it’s been a tough start to the season for Exeter, but despite the defeat today they showed some improvement on their recent performances, and Baxter believes they can “break away” sooner rather than later.
“We definitely rekindled a bit of that fight and movement in our game, and I can’t fault the players for that. I’ve just told the players today, we could talk about the mistakes we made in the game, but that’s a bit irrelevant where we are at the moment,” he said.
“What we’ve got to do, like we did today, is stay in the fight for as long as possible and make things break away, we didn’t quite do that today but I’m sure they will in the future. ”
The Chiefs now turn their attention onto Champions Cup action with a visit to reigning Challenge Cup champions the Sharks – who boast almost an entire XV of Springboks.
