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The 'battle' Rob Baxter admits he's in with Exeter players
By PA
Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall believes the enjoyment his players are having in their rugby is showing after they made it three Gallagher Premiership wins from three this season with a 29-14 victory over Exeter to go top of the table.
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The only remaining 100 per cent record in the Premiership was comfortably maintained at the StoneX Stadium as Sarries’ new-look line-up continued to impress.
Questions were asked in the summer about how the six-time champions would transition from losing leading figures such as Owen Farrell and the Vunipola brothers and the answers so far this season have been positive.
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McCall said: “I guess with the challenge of the transitional period this year, it couldn’t have gone any better.
“It’s very early days, we do know that and I had a little bit of a fear about today because Exeter played well in their first two games.
“They were a little unlucky and it was important that we looked as hungry as they were and I thought we were, so it’s really good, the energy in the group at the moment and that will take us a long way.
“From the moment we came back in pre-season, everyone agreed that we wanted to enjoy what we did more, be clearer on our game model and enjoy our week-to-week a lot more than we had done last season.
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“That’s what’s happened, we haven’t had a bump in the road yet and it’s a good place to go to work at the moment.”
Saracens eased into a 24-7 half-time lead through tries for Jamie George, Tobias Elliott, Ben Earl and Fergus Burke, with Josh Hodge replying for Exeter.
Another score for Earl followed soon after the restart before Hodge rounded off the scoring by completing a double of his own.
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Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter said: “You can see where that game could have been so much tighter, but the reality is I imagine it’s felt semi-comfortable for Saracens because they won those little fights and those little battles far more than we did.
“Whenever we won a little section, we looked a pretty good team and scored our tries.
“That’s kind of the battle I’m in with the players at the minute, to try and accelerate that process.
“Today, you could see that all over the place – how many times did Saracens contest our line-out and how little did we contest their line-outs?
“We practised that a lot this week, the importance of being up in the air where they would be wanting to set their balls and we didn’t get off the floor once at a five-metre line-out.
“Why? Those are questions we’ve got to keep working at with the players and they’ve got to keep answering them.”
