EXETER Chiefs Director of Rugby, Rob Baxter, says his team are ‘excited’ at the prospects of locking horns with the star-studded Hollywoodbet Sharks in the opening game of this season’s Investec Champions Cup tomorrow (1pm).

Baxter’s side have spent the in Durban after arriving in South Africa following a 24-hour journey.

After seven successive defeats in the Gallagher Premiership, the thought of tackling the Sharks - who included Springbok captain Siya Kolisi in their starting line-up this weekend - is by no means a simple assignment for the visiting Devonians.

Baxter, though, remains upbeat ahead of kick-off, insisting his side improvements again in his side’s narrow loss to Bath last Saturday.

“They are a very, very good side with world-class individual players that contribute massively to what they are capable of as a team,” said Baxter. “You look across the pack and then you start looking along the backline and you kind of go, ‘Blimey’.

“You have pretty much got to stop them everywhere. We have just got to try and create a game with movement and tempo that creates an uncomfortable environment for them.

“As a team, we are excited by it. We don’t look like we are getting ready to go into our shells. We actually look like we are getting ready to play.

“If you can create your patches in a game, it’s funny how sometimes a couple of scores can come very quickly and the whole situation can change. We have got to play with positivity, not play with a fear of what they may do. We have got to try and make the game about us as much as we can.”

Holders Toulouse, Bordeaux-Begles and Ulster are also on Exeter’s Champions Cup schedule in the pool stage.

And while that appears a fearsome test, they can take heart from last season’s competition that began with victory in Toulon – a game won by Henry Slade’s final-kick conversion – and was then followed by successes against Munster, Glasgow and Bath before Chiefs made a quarter-final exit to Toulouse.

Baxter added: “Because we got the win in Toulon, and the way we did it, it fired our whole campaign. We also beat Glasgow and Munster last season in this competition to progress, and it was definitely that first away win.

“If you are away from home, the pressure that is on you is to get something from the game, and it starts to create a good feeling for the rest of the competition. You have got to try and get something from every round, and if we do that it keeps things very interesting for us next week with the visit of Toulouse.”

Slade, who returned to the Chiefs ranks last Saturday at Bath following the culmination of the Autumn Nations Series, has not travelled to Africa. Instead, Baxter has opted to use this weekend as the mandatory one-week break for the England star.

Also missing from the side that faced Bath is Rus Tuima, who has stayed home for the birth of his second child. Into the side come Will Haydon-Wood for Slade and Argentinian lock Franco Molina for Tuima. The only other change sees Ben Hammersley come into the centre at the expense of Will Rigg.

Former Sharks player, Jacques Vermeulen, skippers the Chiefs on his return to his native homeland.

Chiefs: J Hodge; I Feyi-Waboso, B Hammersley, T Tua, T Wyatt; W Haydon-Wood, S Townsend; S Sio, D Frost, M Street; F Molina, R Capstick; E Roots, J Vermeulen (c), G Fisilau. Replacements: J Innard, W Goodrick-Clarke, J Roots, C Tshiunza, R Vintcent, W Becconsall, H Skinner, W Rigg