Exeter carried a five-point lead into the game at Thomond Park on Saturday following a robust first-leg performance, but eventually succumbed 34-23 on aggregate after Munster clinched a 26-10 victory.

Baxter admitted that his side were some way off the level needed to overcome a team of Munster’s quality.

“I can kind of talk through the game in all kinds of ways, but there is a reality that we weren’t where we needed to be today to win that game,” he told Chiefs’ website after the loss.

“We started pretty brightly, but then our first set of defence was so far off what we were achieving last week, in terms of it’s intensity and it's kind of collision quality, that worried me a little bit.

“If I’m honest, that probably made me have some concerns as to how simple that momentum came and how simple the first try came.

“To be fair to the lads, we fought our way back into the game at times and when we score our second try, it becomes a tight contest again.

“However, you kind of know a game is dripping away from you when the opposition kicker can’t miss from anywhere and your kicker can’t seem to hit them from anywhere.

“You look and you think if that had been a 50-50 kicking battle, we’d have been in it to the death. That’s some of the simple things that have happened today.”

One area where Baxter believes Exeter struggled was at the breakdown, which Munster managed to wrestle control of for spells in the second leg.

“The breakdown was frustrating, but we kind of solved the problem at half time,” Baxter revealed. “All of a sudden, we’re carrying momentum, we’re keeping the ball, and that’s the frustration of it all.

“I’m not saying things are easy, but some of the simple things that are little golden rules around how you play - and how you pull your game together, we drifted off them relatively easy in the first half and that’s a very big frustration from a coaching perspective because when we kept the ball and we kept going, we were fine.

“If we could have started the game with that clarity of thought, we probably would have seen ourselves in a lot better.”

Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter admitted that his team failed at some basic elements in their Heineken Champions Cup Round of 16 defeat to Munster Rugby.