How Exeter recovered from record 79-17 defeat to be on brink of play-offs

April 24, 2026 No Comments

How Exeter recovered from record 79-17 defeatImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Exeter’s record loss at Gloucester was the nadir of their worst-ever top flight season ByBrent PilnickBBC Sport EnglandPublished1 hour agoIt was a result no Exeter supporter, or Prem rugby watcher, can forget – Gloucester 79-17 Exeter.The Chiefs – two-time former Prem winners, 2020 European champions – shipped 13 tries in 69 minutes as a season that had been bad became catastrophic.

It was the catalyst for big changes at Sandy Park as footage of chairman Tony Rowe giving his players a piece of his mind in the changing room went viral and long-serving coaches Rob Hunter and Ali Hepher lost their jobs.

On Sunday, Exeter return to Kingsholm 364 days on from that humbling, hoping they have put their worst-ever season in the top flight firmly behind them.

“To be honest with you, it’s still fresh in my mind, and I think it will stay in my mind for a long time, what happened up there,” Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Radio Devon.

“I’m not going to run away from that because we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

‘You need to hit bottom before you can start climbing back up again’

Christian Wade breaks through the Exeter defence — Image caption,

Gloucester ripped through Exeter at Kingsholm a year ago, with 10 different players scoring tries

The Chiefs were four tries down inside 20 minutes and trailed 43-7 at half-time after letting in seven first-half tries during that one-sided encounter.

Gloucester, who were the first side Chiefs beat outside Prem Rugby Cup matches last season on 29 December, were in no mood to take their foot off Exeter’s throats, running in another six tries as they registered their biggest-ever league win while inflicting the Devon side’s worst loss.

Exeter’s defeat came having also had an awful season in Europe, culminating in a 69-17 defeat by Bordeaux that surpassed their record loss in European competition.

“I think sometimes you just need something very abrupt,” mentioned Baxter.

“The old saying sometimes is you need to hit the bottom before you can start climbing back up again and I think the whole day created that.”

Gloucester thrash Exeter in record-breaking win
Exeter suspend coaches Hunter and Hepher after record loss
‘Disconnect’ between players and coaches – Rowe

Baxter had seen his side go from perennial title challengers – they made six consecutive Prem finals from 2016 to 2021 – into a side that only won two games against ‘full strength’ opponents last season.

Exeter beat bottom side Newcastle 17-15 at home while wins over Saracens and Northampton came when their opponents were without their international stars.

“The challenge is you’ve got to decide how you confront it, and for me personally, I just confronted it honestly with what I thought we needed to do,” Baxter mentioned.

“Perhaps those were the tough conversations we needed to have earlier in the season that we didn’t because we were trying to find positives.

“People who are involved in sport will know this, one of the things you try to do when there aren’t many positives around is you try to find some positives, but the problem is sometimes you try too hard to find positives [and] you don’t really head-on address the negatives.

“Sometimes that can break a group, if you make that decision, and sometimes it can make a group.

“I had one option, which was to go down the very brutal honesty route about our training quality and our performance levels and fortunately it didn’t break the group, but it brought the best out of a lot of good guys.”

Resurgent Exeter aim for play-offs

Dave Walder (right) talks to Rob Baxter — Image caption,

Dave Walder (right) is one of three new coaches who have joined Rob Baxter’s coaching team at Exeter since the record loss at Kingsholm

That loss precipitated massive change at Exeter.

Hepher – Baxter’s right-hand man since he first took control at Sandy Park in 2009 – and forwards specialist Hunter, who had taken over as head coach after Hepher’s demotion, were suspended and never returned to the first-team fold.

In came experienced backs coach Dave Walder, while Ross McMillan was put in charge of the forwards and long-serving skills coach Ricky Pellow eventually left the club late last year.

And for a club that often signed just a handful of players each summer during their glory days, there was wholesale change in the squad – Australia stars Len Ikitau and Tom Hooper were part of a big recruitment drive that also saw the front row and scrum-half positions bolstered.

It appears to have worked.

While ‘Exeter 2.0’ – the side that came about after their stars that took them to a Prem and European double left the club three to four years ago – failed to trouble the play-off places, this new-look side could return them to former glories.

They lie fourth in the table, are into the semi-finals of the European Challenge Cup, and, but for two yellow cards in the final quarter, could have beaten league leaders Northampton last week.

“If you compare it to this stage last year it feels a lot better,” added Baxter.

“But in other seasons we’d be in first or second in the Premiership and in semi-finals and quarter-finals.

“It feels better than last season, but we’ve still got a decent bit of work to do to come out at the end of the season and say ‘we managed to hold a consistent level of form together across that final quarter of the season’.”

However Exeter’s return to Kingsholm ends up, it will not be as seminal a moment in the club’s recent history as that drubbing in April 2025.

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