Baxter: Exeter coach

The Chiefs, who were arguably the team of last season after finishing eighth in their maiden top flight campaign, have come out of the blocks quickly at the start of the new term, following up an away win over Leicester on the opening day with a home success against Newcastle last weekend.

That leaves the unfancied Sandy Park outfit top of the embryonic table on points difference from Wasps.

But Baxter knows his side will face a tough assignment when they meet Sir Ian McGeechan's Bath at The Rec (kick-off 5.30pm), and wants his squad to remain grounded with the season at such an early stage.

"Of course it's a nice position to be in," said Baxter, who has brought Nic Sestaret, Bryan Rennie and James Phillips into his side for injury victims Josh Tatupu, top try scorer Sireli Naqelevuki and Richard Baxter.

"However, people do get carried away and part of my job is to keep some reality on things. The reality for us is that we are a good side, we have a good group of players and coaches, a good set-up and we feel comfortable.

"But it's like anything, the moment you feel comfortable is the time you start to go backwards. Right now we are happy with where we are, but there are areas of our game where there are steps to be made.

"The reality, I suppose, is you do look at the league table non-stop, particularly at the start of the season because you want to get yourselves out of the dogfight and relieve the pressure on yourselves. We are aware that if you put back to back wins together you can shoot up the table very quickly.

"We have talked about that at length to the players and 'hey presto' nothing shows it more than if you win your first two games of the season and you end up top of the table.

"As I've said we are aware we have achieved something nice by getting to the top, but the reality is we have 20 more games to go and it's all about hard work; collecting points regularly; staying grounded and doing the things that are successful for you.

"That is the challenge for us right now - the challenge is not being top after two games, it's being a good competitive side over the course of 22 Premiership games."

Chiefs lock Peter Short and flanker James Scaysbrook face their former club.

Bath, meanwhile, will be looking to bounce back from their agonising defeat to Saracens last time out, with Owen Farrell landing the knockout blow with the last kick of the game.

Prop Duncan Bell will make his 200th appearance for the West Country side with captain Stuart Hooper replacing Dave Attwood at lock and Ben Skirving and Guy Mercer starting in a back row lacking the injured Simon Taylor. Mark McMillan also gets the nod ahead of Michael Claassens at scrum-half.