The biggest issues Exeter have faced, listening to Baxter, seem to come down to mindset and failing to back up performances after everything has clicked into place. There were concerns towards the end of last season that Exeter were not quite hitting their straps, despite going on to reach the Premiership final before losing to Harlequins.

Time to tweak and adapt tactically over the summer was limited by a shorter pre-season having reached the final combined with long-term injuries and Test call-ups for the British and Irish Lions and home nations. The difficulties of this season combined with less disruption next summer, with fewer internationals at the club as Hill and Skinner move on, has given Baxter plus head coach Ali Hepher and the rest of the coaching staff plenty of food for thought of how to move forward.

“From a coaching perspective, we are having a lot of interesting and animated chats about next pre-season already, because we can see some fundamental things that a season like this allows you to change and creates a lot of reasoning for those shifts,” Baxter notes. “We’ll have a bit more of a settled group, a few more players in, less internationals in the squad, which will mean a more settled training group at the start of pre-season. There are a lot of things we can [introduce] which we’re comfortable with and are certain will get us back on an upward track again.”

Right now, starting with Saracens on Sunday, if Exeter want to make the play-offs then getting everything mentally and emotionally right feels essential, a struggle which has caused confusion for Exeter’s coaching staff throughout the season.

“It’s been a little baffling for us as coaches how we’ve had these emotional highs and lows. We get ourselves in a certain situation where we look like we can fight our way out of almost anything, and then other times we look like we can’t back up what we’ve done the previous week. We just have to get ourselves realigned. That’s our challenge. Our trouble isn’t that we’re not a good side, it’s backing things up and consistency.”

Baxter adds, discussing the game-plan: “The one thing you need as a team is zero second-guessing.” There will be no room for any doubt against Saracens if Exeter want to keep their season alive.