The top four of the Premiership had threatened to become a closed shop but as the regular season nears its end, it is very much open for business with seven clubs contesting a place in the play-offs.
Saracens, Northampton, Leicester and Harlequins were involved in the play-offs in the past three seasons but Quins are out of contention and only the Saints are looking certain for a top-four finish, something they would confirm with victory over Exeter at Sandy Park on Sunday.
Saracens and Leicester meet at Allianz Park on Saturday and the final four rounds of the regular season contain so many fixtures between top-four contenders that even Sale, who are seventh with 47 points, are far from out of it. After Bath, they have the least demanding run-in of the seven.
Wasps are one point ahead of Sale in sixth but with five points virtually guaranteed against London Welsh on Sunday, they then face Exeter, who will probably move into the top four if they defeat Northampton, and Leicester at home before finishing at struggling London Irish. Saracens have Northampton and Exeter to come after the Tigers while Leicester have a home fixture against London Welsh to offset three matches against play-off rivals.
Exeter are the only one of the seven who have yet to make the play-offs, although Sale last did so in 2006 and Wasps in 2008. The Chiefs are looking for their first double over Northampton having won at Franklin’s Gardens in November but they have defeated the Saints only once at home in the league, back in 2011.
“Our goal at the start of the season was to get back into the top six,” said the Exeter head coach, Rob Baxter. “That is still the case, but we are involved in the battle for the top four and the match against Northampton gives us the opportunity to kick on. The table is tight and there is still a chunk of the season to go. Every point matters.”
Asked if he would now view a top six, as opposed to a top four, finish a disappointment given the number of weeks Exeter spent in the play-off positions in the first half of the season, Baxter said: “If we failed to finish in the first four because our performance levels dropped and we did not show our quality, the answer would be yes. If we miss out having given it our all with other teams showing great form, the response would be no.”
Exeter are fighting on two fronts with a European Challenge Cup semi-final against Gloucester at Kingsholm following the visit of Northampton but Baxter does not see that as a distraction but rather proof of how far the club has come since it won promotion to the top flight in 2010 and thrived rather than survived.
“Contending for the top four in the league and making a European semi-final has to be good for the club and the development of the players,” said Baxter, whose side made the final of the LV Cup last month having won the competition the previous season.
“There is an argument that fighting on too many fronts can lead to fatigue and injuries but if you want to be progressive and improve you cannot say that being involved in big matches is a backward step. It is fantastic for us as a club.”
Exeter started the league campaign strongly, winning seven of their first nine matches but suffered a blip either side of Christmas when they lost four games in a row, including Gloucester at home and London Irish away. They responded with four victories, a run that coincided with Henry Slade being moved from centre to outside-half.
“It is too simple to put the change in form down to one move,” said Baxter. “The first two of our defeats were at Sale and Bath, places where not many teams get much joy, and if the next two were harder to take because we should have won both, they gave us a steely determination to prove that we were better than that. The effort has been collective and the improvement was down to our approach as a team rather than selection.”
Baxter is often asked whether he pinches himself at where Exeter are now compared to a decade or more ago when they were en route to the Championship. “When you are in the middle of something, living it by the day, you do not look back,” he said. “Our rise was not one big success story: we had a lot of failure along the way, and I still remember the feeling of losing two cup finals at Twickenham. At one point we were relegated to the fourth division. Bit by bit, we became more professional and improved steadily and because of that I never fear that I will wake up and realise it was all a dream.
“It is all about the here and now which this weekend is Northampton,” Baxter added. “They will be hurting after the manner of their defeat in Clermont Auvergne last week but they are the best team in the Premiership for a reason: they know how the league works and they are a very good side. We will see what our players are made off and it is a match I am relishing.”
