Baxter frustrated as Exeter fall short at Bristol

Exeter have a win, a draw and a loss from their first three Prem games of the season

Exeter boss Rob Baxter says he is frustrated his side were not able to win at Bristol in the Prem but will not overreact to the defeat.

The Chiefs lost 18-14 despite facing a Bears side that was down to 14 men for 30 minutes.

The defeat was a first of the season for Exeter, who had a potentially match-winning try disallowed late on as they slipped to sixth in the table.

"We were up there talking as coaches and going 'really, we've let this one slip' and I think we have," Baxter told BBC Radio Devon.

"I'm not going to run away from that, I think we've let it slip. But at the same time I can't believe people think we were coming into this season as the finished article and we were just going to either win or draw, go the season unbeaten.

"We've still got a lot of hard work to become a great side, but all we've got to do is keep doing that day by day and week by week.

"I said to the lads 'we weren't the best team in the Premiership last week when we beat Newcastle and we're not the worst team in the Premiership now because we lost by a few points to Bristol'.

"It doesn't work like that, you have to stay progressive day by day and week by week and that's how we'll get to where we want to go to."

Despite the defeat, Exeter continue to show a marked improvement from their form of last season when they ended the campaign a club-worst second-from-bottom of the top flight.

Exeter have taken a bonus point from every game they have played this season and have already gathered almost a third of the number of points they collected throughout last season after just three matches.

"I think there's a lot for us to get excited about as a team," Baxter added.

"I'm not going to get downbeat or hammer the players over just something that's not been quite right today.

"We've turned up, we were way closer to winning today than we were this time last year, or indeed most games away from home.

"Today, most people are going to go 'how did Exeter not win that?' - that wasn't being said very often last season away from home.

"So let's keep looking ahead and not keep trying to look down."