Rob Baxter: 'Everyone agreed we were responsible for our own shortcomings'

Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter felt his side made hard work of seeing off battling Bristol following their 29-20 win at Sandy Park which took them top of the Gallagher Premiership table.

Exeter dominated territory and possession, but it was still just a one-score game going into the final stages and a far cry from their one-sided home victories over Saracens and Sale in the two previous home fixtures.

Rus Tuima, Ehren Painter, Tommy Wyatt and Josh Iosefa Scott scored Exeter’s tries, with Henry Slade kicking three conversions and a penalty.

Full-back Rich Lane scored a hat-trick of tries for Bristol, remarkably all from cross-field kicks from Callum Sheedy, who added a penalty and a conversion.

Baxter said: “We have to ask ourselves, are they hurting us or are we hurting ourselves? And everyone agreed we were responsible for our own shortcomings.

“Against Saracens and Sale, when we arrived we were up for the challenge and it never came and today I don’t think we were quite there from the start.

“We weren’t at the same intensity levels and didn’t kick decisively enough, with all Bristol’s tries coming from double-up errors from us.

“We controlled possession and territory and I’m pleased that we battled through the difficult bits in the game.

“For our young side, the learnings from this could be incredible.”

Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam was frustrated his side came away with nothing, having squandered 10 points due to missed kicks.

Sheedy missed two conversions and a penalty and his replacement, James Williams, a last-minute sitter.

Lam said: “I feel for the boys as we definitely deserved something from that game after all the effort we put in.

“Exeter are flying down here, but we left some points out there and winning or losing comes down to little things.

“I always believed we could win the game as we knew there was space out wide, with Callum) and Rich certainly executing well in that area.

“In the second half we couldn’t get out of our half as we conceded penalty after penalty and that required a strong defensive set from us, which is one positive to take from the game.

“Still goal-kicking is important and last season we lost four Premiership games in the last five minutes.

“We missed a golden opportunity last week against Harlequins and today we should have got something from the game so we could easily have four wins from four.”