Opposition view: Baxter salutes his Exeter side after win at Saints

Tom O'Flaherty's try 10 minutes from time gave the Chiefs a 22-19 victory in the Gallagher Premiership encounter.

Saints had bounced back from 14-0 down to lead 19-14 thanks to two tries from David Ribbans and one from Henry Taylor.

But a largely second-string Exeter team maintained their incredible form as they stayed in the game and eventually landed the knockout punch.

"What we're getting at the moment is a lot of buy-in from the players," Baxter said.

"We ask them to work exceptionally hard because they will see the rewards.

"Sometimes at half-time as a coach you ask for a little bit more and we've got used to not feeling too guilty for asking for it.

"The fact we were still in the game later on was because of some of the hard work we did in the first half.

"Northampton scored but we made them work so hard for it and when a battery wears down it's hard to recharge.

"We just had enough freshness at the end of the game to create enough pressure and see it through.

"A lot of the players on the field had less game time than some of the Northampton players and you do wonder when that will take effect.

"But actually we started to pull ourselves together when we went behind and started to refocus on the basics of the catching and handling and maintaining possession.

"We managed to hold our nerve when we were points down and didn't do things rashly.

"Ultimately, it was a test of holding our never under a bit of fatigue and it means we've come through again."

While Saints are languishing down in sixth, Exeter are running away with it at the top.

And Baxter added: "It was a very good win.

"Sometimes I don't know where they dig it up from because anyone who watched the game would have seen that it ebbed and flowed and the momentum shifted.

"We started very well, then Northampton dominated territory and possession for a while and slowly worked their way back into the game at the end of the first half.

"It looked like they'd ripped the momentum away from us at the start of the second half but then we just showed that dogged determination and doing the right things.

"We kept exiting, kept trying to play the way we play and it's funny how getting that kind of belief to stick at it and stick at it gives you that five or 10 minutes you need to create something.

"It's what happened for us and I've got to credit the whole team because they worked exceptionally hard.

"And obviously I've got to credit what was a pretty young and inexperienced bench to come on and do a job for us.

"Tom Price was making his debut and he helped us around the part and we chucked a young front row on there and it was almost seamless.

"They did a fantastic job for us."

Saints have the unenviable task of going to Sandy Park to face Exeter in the Champions Cup quarter-finals on September 20.

And Baxter has warned his players not to get complacent ahead of that clash.

He said: "History shows you over and over again that there's no harder combination of games to win than close games when you've gone away from home, you've knocked off what everyone would deem as the tough one away and then you have that little bit of overconfidence and all of a sudden things slip.

"You see it all the time in European double-headers when apparently the hard work is done in the away leg and then it flips back on you.

"We've got to make sure we don't let that seep into the group, but on the whole you can normally do that with quality of training.

"There are a lot of guys who know they have to perform otherwise they're going to lose their place just when they don't want to."