The Turnaround episode 3 - The final they had to lose

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0:47There was a lot going on that probably got out of our control. A sunny Saturday afternoon welcomed the cream of the Aviva Premiership crop. The Saracens and Exeter faced off in a bid to be crowned the kings of English rugby. so a perfect example was we had thousands and thousands and thousands of extra chief sports out there for obvious reasons they are packing the twickenham car park and we're driving in on our team bus and they're using the side of the bus like a drum i still remember the bangs on the bus and the noise and you could almost sense this is incredible but are we really ready for this are we are we going to be say i'll stay zoned in i think the Big thing from that game I took was that we were almost spectators at a final.

1:40I'm Josh Dornbrack and this is The Turnaround, a podcast that lifts the lid on organisational change. In this series, we look to the world of sport and the remarkable story of how a team in Devon went from playing in front of a handful of spectators at a small ground to beating the odds and making it into English rugby's top flight, suffering unbearable heartbreak on the biggest stage and finally conquering all in the English and European competitions in the same season. I meet with coaches, players and those who follow the journey along the way, as well as organisational psychologists to analyse the moves they made to truly understand the anatomy of a turnaround and how you can apply these lessons to your organisation.

2:24Through visionary leadership, strategic decisions and a relentless pursuit of excellence, Exeter Chiefs rewrote their story just as any organisation can. Last time, we heard about the club's rise to the Premiership and the change of the approach to leadership that came with it. In this episode, we look at how adversity brought the team together and shaped its resilience, how to use honesty and self-reflection to motivate others and much more. We pick up the story at the culmination of the 2014-2015 season. In the story that is ex to Chiefs, it's the adversity they faced that geared the team up for what was to come.

3:00It was their low moments that shaped their mindset, and in this regard, the 2014-2015 season was one of the most pivotal. On March 22nd, 2015, Chiefs lost to Saracens 23-20 in the final of the LV Cup. Less than a month later, they lost their first ever European semifinal to Gloucester in the Challenge Cup. On the last day of the Premiership season the following month, despite scoring seven tries against Sales Sharks, the team narrowly missed out on a semifinal place. Veteran rugby journalist and Planet Sport writer Alex Spink says that it's well established in sport that teams have to serve their time.

3:36You have to have those learning moments and the old cliche about you learn more in defeat than in victory, I think it's true. So it has proved with that club that with that experience, they've been able to achieve great things. Three back-to-back disappointments may have been a tough pill to swallow, but the team harnessed the hurt and used it in their favour. Exeter Chiefs player Jack Yandel says that in sport, you can do one of two things with losses and adversity. You can let it knock you and let it affect you, and it can almost become a negative spiral and it can snowball. I think what we managed to do really well from that season is kind of realise just how close we were to making that top four.

4:12It's almost like a promised land, isn't it? Top four means teams have got to be like, well, Exeter Chiefs are really chucking it around there. And I think we just used it so well off the back of that season. It was almost so much disappointment and heartache that it just drove boys to achieve bigger and better things. Chiefs made the step into the Premiership under the leadership of Rob Baxter, who had an almost two-decade-long relationship with the club. Exeter's first taste of silverware was achieved with the help of young local academy players such as Jack Knoll, Henry Slade and Luke Cowendickey, who had all grown up in Devon and Cornwall and been through the club's system.

4:46The cocktail of understanding from the homegrown players and coaches meant that the Chiefs' way and ethos was coursing through all they did. What the club needed was a local captain who had a full appreciation of it too, and Jack Yandel was chosen to be that man. I am born in Exeter, always lived around Exeter, always... So I've recently lost my dad, and we're going through his bits of the day with my sister, and there's like, we've got like a couple of old Chief shirts in there and stuff like that that I would have worn when I was younger. She actually was like, why has Dad kept an old Chief shirt?

5:15She's like, where's your signature? I was like, that's before I joined. We got that in an auction when Chiefs had just got to the premiership and stuff. So it's nice to go full circle. Yendel was also in the stands as a university student when the club made it into English rugby's top tier. But now a 25-year-old, Yendel knew that he had to prove himself to earn the respect of the senior players. I had captained the team the start of the previous year when Dean Mum missed the start of the season because he had a shoulder up and yeah it just fell into place and I'm probably quite vocal when I play on the pitch without intentionally meaning to be it's just the way I play and yeah then when I got announced the next pre-season I was going to be captain you could like see boys looking around like Yendol I remember Kerry Sweeney just walking in the changing room like Yendol why the hell have they picked you I'm just like thanks a lot Kerry like I know he's like Half having a dig, but also brilliant.

6:08But respect's earned, it's not given. So I had to earn respect by just trying to do a decent job. Exeter Chiefs started the 2015-2016 season with fresh faces, focus and determination to go that one step closer in the Premiership towards a coveted top four spot. The club made a strong push both in the Premiership and the Champions Cup. Chiefs topped their pool in the European competition to set up a quarterfinal against Wasps, who, as Alex Spink explains, was one of the continent's most successful clubs. Well, Wasps were an extraordinary team. In the 90s, when the game went professional, they started winning, they won the first league title.

6:46They then were able to win a couple of European Cups. So they became an incredibly successful team and were just really the gold standard for club rugby. They then went through this kind of decade of mediocrity by their standards, stagnation, they were moving around financial problems, moving to different places. And that is really where we come in with Exeter playing them, at a time where Wasp's a team who are trying to get back, rediscover past glories. Exeter trying to get to the top, and they were kind of clashing at this sort of period. The quarterfinal match took place at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry on April 9th, 2016, in front of 24 ,000 rabid fans.

7:25The two-time champions against the first-time Champions Cup quarterfinalists. Uncharted sees these for the Chiefs They've never been this deep on the continent before Midway through the second half Chiefs had a 13-point advantage on the scoreboard A converted try from Wasps cut the deficit to just 6 points In the dying moments of the game Wasps were hammering the extra goal line 30 seconds to go Gopth, now Daly And now Pirtown, Pirtown!

7:58What can you say about this club? What can you say about this match? Wasps needed a conversion from close to the touchline to win the game and send them into the semi-final. Now, now, now. Jimmy Gopeth, deep breath for a place in the semi-final of the Champions Cup.

8:25They don't do the ordinary. They do not do the ordinary. And players who couldn't watch that kick, players who turn their back on Jimmy Goplin, envelop him in celebration, and the Ricoh goes mad, and your heart goes out to Exeter. It absolutely does. Oh my God, they played an incredible part in a fantastic European quarter-final. Devastating for them, their first ever, and to go out, not matter much, The heartbreaking last-minute defeat took the tally to four brutal disappointments in just over a year for Exeter. However, former Chiefs player and organisational psychologist Don Armand says that dealing with challenges is one of the biggest lessons that the business world can learn from sport.

9:13When you have a major setback, you do the review-preview. OK, that's what we messed up this time, put it into that document, make sure we learn that lesson and let's go again because we know how to get to that point just before failure and so if you can always look at that point before failure you got to can you repeat that and then take it one step further and not fail this time then you just repeat that over and over and over again so if you look at our games and our trajectory watch for the consistencies in our performance so in the structures at certain places in the field we always did the same thing the way we played was always similar so you can start to repeat your performances because your structure is the same and then what you free up is people's mindset so they're not having to think about this play or that play they just know what play to do and they're thinking about freeing themselves up and it's the same in businesses if you can review preview learn so that people aren't worried about what's coming and they're able to recognize oh we've done this before and it worked okay let's keep going and i remember when we got to this point we need to change something slightly we need to do this a bit better.

10:16That way it means that when you fail, people don't go flip that's a failure what a major setback. They go oh we failed, how do we do better next time? The burden for the handling of challenges ultimately starts and ends with the leader. This is the both the privilege and the burden of leadership is how you react to failures is more important. People talk about psychological safety and you can either say it does exist or it doesn't. It definitely does. you can just term it in a different way as a leader everyone is watching you and your worst moments not your best because what you show people in your worst moments is what they are going to remember so if you can work on that if you show a bad side of you i.e you shouted you got annoyed own up to it i'm only human so now we talk about vulnerability guys honestly i was stressed because it meant a lot to me let's keep going forward because i genuinely want you guys to know it's okay as long as we move forward and we don't repeat these things too often so if i as a leader start to shout at you all the time by all means call me out because i've told you that's not what i want to do vulnerability isn't going guys i feel sad and this is what i'm it's going i messed up but this is our direction we're going and i think the key with that is making sure that the direction you want to take everyone in is one you truly believe in because then you give off the right energy people then get attracted naturally to that energy and things just become a lot easier what if you could grow your business faster just by surrounding yourself with the right people at business leader we connect uk founders and ceos with the support they need to scale fast that means peer group forums with experienced entrepreneurs one-to-one coaching live master classes and real world insights from our under the bonnet company visits whether you're stuck in the day-to-day or planning your next big leap.

12:01You don't have to do it alone. Our members include founders and CEOs you've heard right here on this podcast and they're seeing real results. If your business turns over at least three million pounds in revenue a year and you're ready to grow further, apply now for our next free growth workshop or book a consultation call. Spots are limited. Head to businessleader.co.uk to get started. After heartbreak in Europe, Exeter didn't need long to get their own back on Wasps. Chiefs closed out the 2015-2016 season second on the Premiership table, marking the first time they'd finished within the top four.

12:40Wasps finished in third, setting up a semi-final showdown at Sandy Park. The second of even Premiership semi-final of 2016 took place at Sandy Park, where the Exeter Chiefs were looking to make the showpiece at Twickenham for the first ever time. 20 years ago, Lagoshoek in Courage League Division 4. Now European Cup quarter-finalists, premiership semi-finalists, and with every chance of winning the thing. It was a tough game in front of a raucous Devon crowd. The lead changed four times in the first half alone, with Chiefs going into the break, 20 points to 14 up. Exeter came out hard in the second half, eventually giving themselves a 10-point lead.

13:18Wasps fly-half, Jimmy Coppeth, kicked three penalties, but it was all in vain as Chiefs held out, finishing with a dominating penalty try to seal the 34-23 victory.

13:48Chiefs player Jack Knoll reflects on the aftermath of his side's semi-vinyl victory. As much as I loved the fact that we won at home in the semi-final, you could see a lot of the boys celebrating as if it was our final. Chiefs celebrated their semi-final victory hard after making it into their first ever Premiership final. Their opposition on the day was one of the most formidable in European rugby. Saracens were the defending Premiership champions and were playing in their fifth final in seven seasons. A fortnight earlier, the North London side had won the European Champions Cup. If Saracens were to defeat Chiefs and take the Premiership title, they would claim what they call in rugby circles, the double.

14:26Although Exeter had won the two-legged final to get into the top flight six years before, and the LV Cup title two seasons ago, these games pale in comparison to the Premiership final. Over 75 ,000 fans packed into the stadium. The eyes of the rugby world turned to Twickenham. Jack Yandel reflects on the day. First of all, absolutely buzzing to play at a full Twickenham. It was absolutely insane. Something I never thought I'd do, if I'm honest with you. I don't think we've had anybody in the team who'd been to a final before. That's Chiefs Director of Rugby, Rob Baxter. An incredible day, an incredible experience.

15:00In hindsight, although I don't know if we could have predicted it, there was a lot going on that probably got out of our control and we weren't ready for them, so we hadn't talked about it. You know, there's always traffic around Twickenham when there's a big game on. I remember our bus, someone crashed into the side of our bus as well. We turned in a bit late. It ended up quite late. It wasn't like five minutes, it was like 40 minutes late. We had thousands and thousands and thousands of extra-cheese supporters up there, for obvious reasons. They are packing the Twickenham car park. Just that sea of people, as you turn that corner, you could just hear this roar of the Tomahawk chop was going absolutely insane.

15:36There's us lads just like, literally goosebumps, just looking around like, oh my days. And we're driving in on our team bus, and they're using the side of the bus like a drum. and the noise on the bus and the volume. Everyone's videoing with their phones out the window and stuff. And again, that probably added that level of overwhelmingness that we just didn't turn up. And you could almost sense, this is incredible, but are we really ready for this? Are we going to be able to stay zoned in? Final score from a thrilling final at Twickenham. Saracen's 28, Exeter Chiefs 20. We didn't. We didn't stay zoned in.

16:11And it's one of those things afterwards how many of the players kind of went, needed to experience that really to be able to move on. In almost every success story, there are tough and painful lessons to learn along the way. And this final would prove to be exactly that for a young ex to side. Former Chiefs player turned coach, Hayden Thomas. The beauty of that fixture was we learnt so much very quickly. One thing as a club we've done well is that we've been exposed to things and we've learnt and we were very humble and said, right actually we're going to do this differently do that differently the coaches debriefed us that final and just it was only minor things it wasn't huge things but how the minor things can then snowball into bigger things do you know i mean it was absolutely a driver for the next you know season two seasons three seasons it was that huge huge driver of we are that close to being premiership champions you look at back in history that a lot of teams have to go through those big occasions former chiefs coach ali heifer you know the first time you get there it's it kind of The day can sweep you up.

17:13And obviously, you know, for us to make it from where we'd come from was a huge, you know, huge deal and very exciting. But we probably just took our eyes slightly off the game. You obviously put a lot into any game physically, but it's about getting that emotional level right, and particularly the emotional reset, because you genuinely do pour so much into a game. Like, you know, you see boys like welling up and getting upset after a game, and from the outside you'd be like, all right mate it's only a game but when you give that much it's really hard to then get that emotional reset wasps here in the semi i think the celebrations from us then were absolutely amazing you know we've made it to a final we've made it to a final and i always remember rob coming being like just everyone needs to just rein it in a bit we couldn't get that emotional reset right because we were so ecstatic to be there when realistically that wasn't the final hurdle deputy rugby We corresponded at the Times, Will Kelleher, who was covering that final.

18:08That emotional high of building all the way up to that premiership final and then to have the rug pulled from them had a big effect. And it was a big learning experience for them, I think, because it was the biggest game that quite a lot of that team had ever been part of. And I think in their heart of hearts, they got to the big dance and they weren't quite mentally ready for it. It really did hurt because we were that close to becoming premiership champions. You can look back and see it was a great experience now. Do you know what I mean? and we learn how to deal with big occasions. For players like myself, that's the biggest occasion I'd ever been on and you're only going to get better from doing it again.

18:41TNT and ITV rugby commentator Nick Mullins, who had worked on many Chiefs games throughout the season. The fact that the Chiefs didn't win wasn't a huge surprise, but there was a definite feeling after that match and looking into the eyes of the players and people like Rob Baxter that that was almost the final they were allowed to lose because they were there for the first time. But the next time they got there, they wouldn't be getting the losers' medals. But I think it affected them the next season because they found it difficult to get back up, almost. Exeter Chiefs started the following season looking to shake off the disappointment of losing the final and solidify their place as one of the best teams in England.

19:20But that didn't go as planned. The team won just two of their opening 10 games in all competitions, slipping to seventh on the Premiership log at the end of October. With the final loss seemingly still hanging over the team, Rob Baxter had a harsh moment of self-reflection. We didn't start the season very well. And I remember thinking, I'm not really saying the right things here. I'm not really doing the right things. And I said to the team, I said, look, guys, we've got to understand something now. If last season you lose a final, there's only one progression we can talk about making here, isn't there?

19:55And I said, I can dress it up as much as you like, but we need to start talking about winning a final, don't we? We should be trying to win a frontline final. Organizational psychologist Graham Norris says that this holds a key lesson for leaders. You know, I used to work in public relations and marketing for a long time. Someone said to me, you know, in public relations, isn't that all about lying and twisting things and everything else? And I said, look, why lie when there's so much truth to play with? Right. And so a leader doesn't need to make things up. Certainly, they need to think about how they're presenting things.

20:26And actually in that clip, Rob Baxter, he's very well-intentioned, but he acknowledged the fact that he wasn't presenting the truth in the right way, the way that was going to be motivating and meant something with his team. You know, when you're being honest, yes, you need to be honest, but you also need to think about how you're going to present that and how that's going to land with your team, you know, thinking about the world as it looks like from them. If you have a leader who is transparent and honest and straightforward and speaks in those kinds of terms and is very open about what they've done right, but also what they've done wrong, you can see the power in that.

21:00And then you can buy into the fact that that person learns and really does learn from their experiences. But former chiefs player and organizational psychologist Don Armand says that there's one thing to keep in mind when it comes to delivering the message. You don't have to come across as weak to be vulnerable. And I think that's the biggest barrier that comes in with leaders these days, especially if you are the old school generation where that was just not acceptable to be vulnerable is there's vulnerability and weakness is unfortunately automatically paid but you can deliver a message one way you seem strong the other way you seem weak and you've got to think about how you can deliver a message in a strong way so rob would have stood up and be like guys i haven't said it in the right way and i understand because i don't see people buying in he didn't go i'm sorry i'm not good i wasn't good enough to do this if you guys give me another chance i'll try that comes across as weak loses authenticity, loses respect, loses buy-in.

21:52So it was that ability to know how to deliver a message that as a leader he held his power and people then still respected that and wanted to follow. And that's where like communication always comes down to it. Understanding your own energy state and your self-awareness and the message and how you give it is almost way more important than having a great strategy that's communicated badly. Little did Baxter know the same feeling was building within the player leadership group. Exeter Chiefs fly-half Gareth Steenson explains the mood within the squad. So you've got to think, when we won our first 2010, we got promoted.

22:26It wasn't about winning something the next year because it was about we'd just been promoted. Our goal was to stay up. We'd been to the final. It was our first ever time experiencing 80 ,000 people. So we kind of just went, well, do you know what? We've done that. We know how to do it. We're a top team. We're a top team now. We're just going to roll in and we're just going to be able to complete the next section, which isn't the case because all of a sudden now teams will look at you different they'll look at they'll analyse you maybe that a little bit more they'll come after you a little bit harder because we hadn't won at that point we were kind of a hunted team a little bit so teams would approach you harder Chiefs club captain Jack Yandel again We'd almost started the next season like ah it's alright we got to the Premier Final we've earned it we'll be able to get back there no problem at all and yeah it was definitely the first run of games we had and we were just looking and we were like this is crap so I think we had a meeting out at Greendale Farm represent the road.

23:15A couple of us senior players just went out there and just been like, right, we need to set the standards up here. We've got to set our stall up because we're not having something that was so close being snatched away from us just because our standards are dropped as a team. So yeah, I remember we had a fairly intense players meeting. That wasn't even with the coaches. We had a fairly intense players meeting being like, you know, addressing personal standards, training standards, gym standards, just little bits and bobs that if they all start to drip away, loads of one percenters add up to a lot of percent.

23:43The bad start to the season and came to a head in a European Champions Cup game against French juggernaut Clermont Tavern at Sandy Park. And that says quite a lot. At the end of a testing afternoon at Sandy Park, Clermont, convincing winners. Five tries to their name. Exeter really with no answers at all. The French side won the game 35 points to eight, and Chiefs senior players had had enough. We were still in our kit, still in our changing room. A bit of the senior boys went, right, this isn't on. We all went straight into the coach's office, sat down still boys of blood all over them or whatever and they said right how are we fixing it this isn't good enough we don't want to be in this scenario we want to go back to that final again and it was a real you know we're at November at this point you've over half the season left but if you keep losing one or two you're in big trouble Jack Knoll shares his recollection of the meeting I do remember a lot of the senior boys standing up and being like boys this is we've got to a final one year and now we haven't won we haven't really won a game in the premiership we've just been absolutely you thumbed at home to a french side that you know we should be beating we went into the coaches as well and be like we can't accept standards but like you guys call us out on it as well we're not going to be offended by it and i think that's probably a big thing we had in the players meeting was don't take offense if someone else is calling you a dick for for not draining well enough it was almost so necessary for me that we did that because it was like okay let's get everyone back on the same page now you know we take this into a business sense if you have a meeting like that and someone goes why are we being challenging this is a bit harsh they are in the wrong space you either go look this is the way we're doing it this is where we're going do you buy into it yes or no if they do they don't see those as a challenge they go okay yes i see that was necessary maybe we're a bit harsh but realistically i'm resilient to those things because it's not about me it's about the end goal so often it's we haven't tied in the right people so they get offended then we stop offending people we stop becoming high performing we stop having meetings because we're scared of losing people and then all of a sudden we're an inefficient team and then the business starts to suffer and it's relied on one thing it was the leader's ability to tie in the overall direction and get the right people on board and it worked it definitely worked because the bounce back after i think we might have had ulster away after that and we just lost the game but like the full time we still went and we had given everything like i'm talking everything like nearly flopped to the floor because we put so much into it but there was that kind of feeling when we got in the changing room was like, right, that's what it takes.

26:11We might not have got the result, but the performance was there. This moment was pivotal, says Baxter. The season just took off from that point. And we obviously had some key senior players who really had big, big seasons for us and added that bit of drive and a bit of direction. And I think together that kind of took us on that run and we never really lost momentum. What happened next was nothing short of remarkable, as recalled by journalist Alex Spenk. From 30th of October, which I think was the day they lost to Bath, through until the 6th of May the following year, they didn't lose a game in the league.

26:47They won 15 games and drew three of their 18. So they arrive at the playoffs in unbelievable nick, having beaten pretty much everyone in that second half of the season. They haven't lost in that year when they go into the playoffs. And so from being this team at the start of the season, which kind of didn't know quite where it was going, hadn't regrouped maybe mentally and physically from the previous year. By the end of the season, they really were in their stride. A strong finish to the season by Chiefs saw them earn a home semi-final for finishing second. This set up a semi-final showdown at Sandy Park against the side that had beat them in the final the previous season, Saracens.

27:28Will Kelleher remembers the match well. It was an epic match, one of the great Premiership playoff games, I would say. Firstly, great narratives all around because you've got revenge for the final the year before. And also Saracens almost never have an away semi-final. They almost always, when they get into the playoffs, are playing at home. And no one likes playing on their pitch. It's a 4G plastic surface and the ball bounces weirdly. And they're a formidable team that hardly ever lose at home. So Exeter having the home game really changed the dial a little bit. That game was so frustrating and it was a typical Saracens where we, I felt like we were dominating the whole game, and I'm pretty sure we were.

28:06But, you know, Saris are such a good team where they are always in the fight. They're always there or thereabouts just behind you. After finishing the first half tied at six points apiece, Chiefs got their noses in front with a converted try from Jack Knoll just after halftime. They probably should have put Saracens away, but Saracens is one of those teams that kind of never die. A try 15 minutes later saw Saracens narrow the gap between the sides to 13 points to 11. and then with five minutes to play. Over the top for Ellery. Mike Ellery. Can he get it down? He scores. The most acrobatic, the most sensational of finishes.

28:46Mike Ellery. Mike just have put Saracens into the final again. And I think everyone who was a neutral who probably wanted Exeter to win thought, they've not done it. I remember thinking, not again. like this can't be happening to the team that beat us in the final of the year before to lose in the last minute of the game. Like what is happening here? Like this wasn't meant to be, this wasn't how it was meant to be. But then the usually ice cold, dead eye kicker Owen Farrell missed the conversion from right on the touchline, which gave Exeter a chink of light. And then what unfurled was incredible, really.

29:26Exeter won a scrum penalty just inside their half with just over a minute to go. in the game. Henry Slade lined up a touch finder. He tried to kick the ball as far as he could to get a line out in the Saracens half.

29:51Sandy Park's a wet and wild and windy place sometimes and he just managed to catch whatever breeze there was behind him and this ball flew off his left foot about 70 metres, like an absolutely incredible kick straight into touch, about seven metres from the Saracens line, which in rugby is so vital to get as close as you can to the try line with those penalties to touch because then you've got the opportunity to score a try from rolling more. The forwards came together, just looked at each other, we got the call, got in there and as soon as we won that line-up, we just knew we were going over.

30:22And his forwards now can really attack this line, piling their eyes, trying to work out what the defenders are doing. Make the right call. Could this be the fairy tale? The line-up ball is run from Dennis. This is their strength. One of their many strengths. Simmons eyeing up the try line. Simmons! It's there! Sam Simmons, who at the start of the season was on loan at Cornish Pirates, he scored the try that took them to their second Premiership final. I mean, I freaked out as much as anybody in the grandstand when that try goes in and Wayne Barnes awarded it. I've got a good mate who I used to play with.

31:06He's still got his season ticket and he's still in the same seat on that middle tier. And I've walked down and I'm watching from there because I think this is it, last ditch. And I'm looking one way and he's looking the other. And then the try goes in and we just run towards each other and have a hug and all this stuff. But literally, 30 seconds later, I'm on the pitch and I am walking around saying to lads, let's try and woe ourselves down here pretty quick. You probably look back at the footage of post-that game where we had it previous years in that Wasp semi-final where we were going nuts.

31:33Like we celebrated, we went a bit nuts for a bit and then we went right, lock it down. We've got a job to do. And we did. We managed to woe ourselves down because of the experience of the year before very well. Even though we won the way we did and we won in the last minute, you know, we celebrated, but we got into the change room after and we were already talking about the week after. you know we're already talking about the the final against wasps and what was coming up whereas the year before we weren't like that we were absolutely buzzing you know we already had beers in the changing room and we didn't really mention anything about the week after so yeah i think that was the big difference that the the boys knew the experience from losing the final and already being there to then winning another home semi-final to then being like right we're going to do it this year despite overcoming their bitter rivals in dramatic fashion lessons learned from the year before had focus the extra players on the job that still had to be done.

32:24But that winning moment was a culmination of several tasks and players working in harmony to make the play work. Firstly, the scrum. I often use that clip of Slady kicking to the corner and us going over and really tie in how important a team is. Former Chiefs player turned organizational psychologist Don Armand again. No one speaks about the scrum to get the penalty, which was the props, the hooker. So like Jens, that's him getting that scrum together getting a win and focusing on like all the techniques that we practice to get the penalty secondly the kick as soon as that kick went in from slady like the flukiest kick ever off the outside of his shin and he still like has made a career off that kick which is a joke like the wind blew it as much as i like to take the mick out of slady as well he went for it and i'm so happy he went for it you know we had a bit of a wind behind us which obviously helped him but he he backed himself to to get it five meters out and you know if you missed that kick and he kicked in the try line like it is what it is but like at least he went for it.

33:25And thirdly the line out. It actually is a risky line out it's near to where they've got a defensive pod but we kind of know if we catch it we're likely to score. What about the caller and the call that he made to get the right call in a huge pressure moment? That caller was Jeff Parling an experienced lock forward who had been pivotal in Chiefs run to the final but when he joined the club two seasons before, and despite having over 200 club games to his name, Baxter and then forwards coach Rob Hunter encouraged him to take a few more risks. He was, when he first came to us, a very analytical type line-out forwards.

34:02I'll throw it where we're going to win it, and we'll deal with the next thing next. Whereas Rob was trying to kind of encourage him to be a bit more, you can have to take a bit of a chance sometimes if you want to score off it. We did, and we actually did it perfectly on the day. The man throwing into the line-out was Jack Yandel. He has thrown some skew throws from time to time in his career. It's now the most important throw of his career and he nails it. It's the line-out lottery. You've got to be in it to win it. That's why you do lots of reps at training. It's a stimulus thing, isn't it? You try and block out the background noise, focus on your mind you're going to hit and just back your drills.

34:37That's why you practice reps and reps and reps. But no one speaks about those little things. yet Jens knows when he watches that that like how important that was but no one will ever recognize that or maybe one or two people will but that's more is like that self-satisfaction the recognition of what role you play in the team isn't going to get paid the most or the highlights that you're going to get but you're going to get satisfaction because off the back of that we won a final and that's going to stay with you forever and it was a huge shock result really most people in Sandy Park were off their feet and going mad and throwing pints in the air so yeah it was a wild afternoon.

35:12We have this team of Chiefs who I think have only got about seven players who have played international rugby have suddenly downed Saracens and they're at the final and I think possibly that was the day when the penny dropped for Chiefs that they started really believing. I think you know when they trace everything back they probably look at that day and say yeah that was the day that we came of age. Next time on The Turnaround. It was certainly the biggest scandal in the history of from English professional club rugby. I know a lot of the Exeter fans were bitter about it, and rightly so, you know.

35:43But for us as players, there's nothing you could have done about it. Focus on what you can control. Everything else is a distraction. The truth of any good organisation, any good change room, any good group of people is the momentum of the group. You could turn around and be like, Ali, when are you going to let the guys just enjoy the win? Well, if he did, we would have enjoyed that win and never won another final. The Business Leader Summit 2026 is set to be bigger, bolder and more ambitious than ever. Don't just watch Britain's growth story unfold, be part of it. Secure your ticket today by visiting the events section of the Business Leader website and using the code BLPODCAST, all uppercase.

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