European Champions Cup: English sides may have been taken lightly says Rob Baxter

Exeter's young squad had been underdogs to win at Toulon

Exeter boss Rob Baxter believes English sides may have been taken lightly in the first round of the Champions Cup.

Seven Premiership teams won their opening European pool matches.

Exeter and Harlequins beat French sides while Sale, Bath, Bristol, Leicester and Northampton also won.

"Because of the negativity surrounding the Premiership lately, it would be very easy to take the Premiership clubs lightly. Maybe that's what happened," director of rugby Baxter said.

"There's not a player playing first-team Premiership rugby in this country who isn't a determined, good, professional rugby player and you've seen that in how competitive all the games have been.

"When you turn up with 15 of you on the field and they're all competitive and they've all got something to fight for you'll give yourself a great chance of winning games of rugby, and I think that's what I've seen.

"Our challenge going forward is how we maintain things not just over seasons, but over blocks of seasons where you end up seeing two Premiership clubs in semi-finals or two Premiership clubs getting to latter stages.

"That's when we're going to really see whether we're really holding our own, and that's an exciting thing for us to try and achieve."

Having seen three sides go bust last season and a number of players leave England, in particular for France, there had been concerns that English sides might struggle in Europe.

Exeter registered a historic win at three-time champions Toulon, Marcus Smith inspired Quins to a victory in Paris over French league leaders Racing 92 and Sale crushed Stade Francais 28-5 at home.

Saracens were the only Premiership team to lose at South African side Bulls.

"We should be talking positively about the Premiership and the results at the weekend bear that out," added Baxter, who led Exeter to victory in the 2020 Champions Cup.

"There should be more positivity around Premiership rugby than there is at the moment, but at the same time we also have to be able to back that up.

"If we just fall down to Munster and play poorly, if Premiership clubs now going into their second games perform poorly, that starts to drop away again.

"For me we'll know those answers a little bit down the line. One round is a little early to tell.

"If we're towards the latter stages and there's a few Premiership clubs involved, then we can start to look at the reasons why that's happened."

Exeter host Irish side Munster on Sunday.