Exeter’s director of rugby admitted his side had chances to score more in the first leg clash at Sandy Park, but praised their resilience after receiving two quick yellow cards in the second half.

Baxter told the club website: “It was a funny one, now it’s finished you would say the tale of the game is us not being able to take our opportunities or Munster stopping us taking those five-metre opportunities that we managed to create.

“But then you turn it around and say when we were down to 13 men, we had to work like devils really to stop them scoring.

“You could feel there was a real opportunity for them because we had 10 minutes with only 13 men and that could really have turned against us.

“Some of our spirit in defence and around the breakdown, especially when down to 13 men, that was probably some of our best rugby this season.

“The whole game, the whole situation could have flipped then, but it didn’t. To only lose the scoreboard by two points in that period, I thought was incredible from us.”

Baxter added: “We have got over the try line a number of times, yet we haven’t got the ball dotted on the floor. That’s not a disaster of a performance, that’s a very good performance with the last dot-down just needed.

“It’s like dotting the last ‘i’ on a novel, that’s all that needs to happen. All the hard work, processes and elements are there, and that gives me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season.”

Looking ahead to Saturday’s second leg at Thomond Park, Baxter said: “At the end of the day, we have to be flat out.

“If we’re not flat out, I think Munster can expect to turn that over.

“They are probably in the changing room now with a few late changes they made to their squad, players available next week, and they are probably relatively happy with the scoreboard. Now we have to turn that into our favour.

“The last time we played there, we played well, but we had the pressure of trying to get five points and score four tries. We had to go for it.

“We actually created a lot of pressure where we could have kicked for goal, but couldn’t do that on the day. We had no option of how we could win the game.

“This time we’ve got lots of options for how we can win the game, we’ve not had that before, and we have to make sure we are willing to work extremely hard to make that happen.”

Rob Baxter was quietly pleased with the 13-8 lead Exeter Chiefs gained over Munster Rugby in the Heineken Champions Cup Round of 16.