It's a glorious grind in the rain for heroic Baxter boys

GREAT sides find ways to win when the going gets tough, and Exeter Chiefs did exactly that in claiming this Devon Double.

- NICK CAIN

They join the pantheon of English double winners – becoming only the fourth club to do so by matching Leicester, Wasps and Saracens – and they fully merit the plaudits after battling through the evening deluge at Twickenham, overcoming a spirited Wasps outfit to add the Premiership trophy to a Sandy Park cabinet that already contains the European Cup.

Exeter’s success has been built on the firmest of foundations both on and off the pitch – and it was on the field that, for the second week in succession, they showed how rock-solid they are in the basics of the game.

The Chiefs had a clear advantage throughout this final at the scrum and lineout, and in the ability to control the ball in contact, and eventually, it was that attention to the fundamentals that carried them to their second Premiership title only a decade after winning promotion from the Championship.

At half-time, Rob Baxter, Exeter’s talismanic coach, was asked what his side – who led 13-10 at the interval – had to do to tilt the balance in their favour against a Wasps outfit that never stopped scrapping. He summed up the game plan perfectly, saying that the waterlogged pitch made multiple passage of play pretty difficult and that his side had to use set-piece pressure, “to grind and grind”.

After a first-half in which both sides made light of the conditions to score spectacular tries – Exeter through Henry Slade and Wasps through Jacob Umaga – the contest tightened-up, and as the margins for error became smaller, and the ability to apply pressure became critical, it was the Chiefs, who came out on top.