Exeter Chiefs side for semi-final clash

Team play Northampton for place at Twickenham

The Chiefs are one step away from their fourth successive Premiership final. First they must beat Northampton for the second week running when they play at Sandy Park at 4.30pm on Saturday.

Having finished the regular season as the league leaders, for a second successive year, Baxter’s side have a home advantage for tomorrow’s showdown against Northampton Saints - who they beat 40-21 last week. 

Speaking to the clubs website, Exeter Chiefs director of rugby said: “For all of us, it’s an exciting week. Watching the lads train, the effort they are putting in, the focus they’ve got, it looks as good as any other pre semi-final training week that we’ve had.

"I look out there and I see we have a good group of fit players, probably our biggest compliment to choose from all season, and there is a real hunger about us.

“Having large numbers like we’ve had, it’s meant we’ve been able to have some very high quality training sessions, so we should have a degree of confidence about us based on that, the season we’ve had, plus the performance we put in last weekend. Now, we have to back up that confidence with a desire to work really hard and put in a big, emotional performance that hopefully will win us the game.”

Team News: Baxter sticks with a virtually identical team to that which beat Northampton. The sole change in the starting line-up sees Tom O’Flaherty get the nod over Olly Woodburn on the wing, while on the bench Alec Hepburn is recalled at the expense of Billy Keast.

15 Jack Nowell 14 Alex Cuthbert 13 Henry Slade 12 Ollie Devoto 11 Tom O’Flaherty 10 Joe Simmonds 9 Nic White 1 Ben Moon 2 Jack Yeandle (capt) 3 Harry Williams 4 Dave Dennis 5 Jonny Hill 6 Dave Ewers 7 Don Armand 8 Matt Kvesic

16 Luke Cowan-Dickie 17 Alec Hepburn 18 Tomas Francis 19 Sam Skinner 20 Sam Simmonds 21 Jack Maunder 22 Gareth Steenson 23 Sam Hill