Courageous Chiefs pipped by late tries

Exeter Chiefs came oh so close to recording a brave victory at high-flying Leicester Tigers in the Gallagher Premiership, only to be thwarted by late scores for the relieved hosts.

Exeter recorded their first league win of a difficult season over Gloucester last weekend and played with improved confidence throughout a compelling contest.

The 14-3 deficit at half-time was harsh on the Chiefs, who were trailing to tries from Olly Cracknell, but they were dominant in the opening 20 minutes of the second period, reducing arrears with a fine score from Tommy Wyatt.

The winger dived over again to give the Chiefs a narrow lead but a dubious sin bin for Will Rigg opened the door for Ollie Hassell-Collins and Ben Youngs to cross the whitewash and secure a 28-15 victory for the Tigers.

Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Radio Devon: "I'm a bit frustrated, a little disappointed. When you work that hard, you're that competitive in a game, you desperately want to get something out of it.

"You've got to feel for the lads when they work that hard and, ultimately, we end up with no points from the game.

"But there's some moments in there where you can go 'We're finding our way, we're getting there' and we're becoming more and more competitive.

"The yellow card clearly hurt us, which has got to be a frustration.

"My view is we're trying to talk about we want, an aerial contest, so we're trying to talk about not having blockers and decoy runners and all this type of stuff.

"Then you create an aerial contest and the first thing that happens is if you get it slightly wrong, and that's very slightly wrong, it's a yellow card. Why can't it be something in between?"