Exeter took 'step forward' in Saints loss - Baxter

Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter says he is seeing progress in his side after they claimed a losing bonus point at reigning Premiership champions Northampton.

The Chiefs scored two late tries to come away from Franklin's Gardens with a 30-24 defeat.

That came a week after an error-strewn 17-14 loss at home to Leicester, meaning Baxter's side have lost their opening two Premiership fixtures for the first time in three seasons.

"I think we got large parts right, we spent a lot of time in the right areas of the field, but we're still patchy on our individual error count," Baxter told BBC Radio Devon.

"But I think, collectively, as a team, we took a step forward."

Exeter trailed 30-10 with 12 minutes left before England winger Immanuel Feyi-Waboso went over twice to close the gap and ensure a second point of the season from two games.

"Some of it is fairly simple, and that's the frustrating thing, and it's literally the lads being just a little bit hard on basically just keeping it simple and letting things happen," added Baxter.

"We're forcing an awful lot that we should be able to [just] let happen if we were a really comfortable, good, confident side.

"That's probably how I'm going to approach the next review - I'm going to show them these things and say 'come on guys, if you let this just be simple here you're probably going to score'.

"That said, we've already taken some pretty big chunks forward from last week - the opposition have a back off the field and we took the scrum, we scored the try - there's a simple way of doing things.

"That is a step forward very quickly - having said that, other elements of our game weren't as good as last week, that's what it's going to be like for a week or two."

Baxter said his players were left frustrated after the game, having got back into it in the final quarter.

He drew parallels with the Exeter side that won an English and European double in 2020 in regard to how the current squad have claimed points in losses this season.

"If we are a good enough team that we are finishing within six points or better of every opponent we play away from home we're going to be a pretty good, very competitive team," he said.

"One of the hallmarks of what made us a very good team a few years ago was there were two seasons where I think we took at least a point in every game but one we played, something like that.

"You know you're a good side when that's happening - it means you're going to win most of your games and if you're going to be that close in the ones you lose then you're a pretty good side.

"We've got to find that quality of toughness and machine-like ability at the basics of what we do, but we're still going to have to work at that for a number of weeks, months, seasons to be very, very good."