ROB Baxter insists Exeter Chiefs have rediscovered their fighting DNA - even in defeat.

The Chiefs were beaten 40-34 by Bath at The Rec, a second success PREM Rugby loss, but after slumping 26-10 behind, they produced another remarkable comeback before eventually falling short.

For Baxter, the response was a sign that there is plenty to work with.

“The important emotion is I’m walking away going, ‘We’ve got a team here and we’ve got something to work with’,” said Baxter. “Last week was such a patchy performance but today we showed a lot of good qualities.

“The qualities of being in a fight to the death, that’s what Exeter Chiefs are about. Do you want to be perfect or do you want to be in a fight every single week? Well, we’ll be in a fight every single week. I’m quite happy with that. That’s what we’re good at and I saw that today.”

Bath looked to be cruising towards revenge for their agonising semi-final defeat three months ago when they rattled up four first-half tries.

Cameron Redpath intercepted Harvey Skinner’s pass and raced clear from inside his own half, before Bernard van der Linde spotted a gap and darted over.

The Chiefs hit back through Stephen Varney after Immanuel Feyi-Waboso had made the initial break, then Jack Yeandle powered over from a line-out maul.

However, Dan du Preez and Finn Russell crossed for Bath, Russell converting his own try to leave the hosts 26-10 up at half-time.

Just as it was in the semi-final back in the summer, the Chiefs needed a rapid response. Prop Josh Iosefa-Scott burrowed over after Kane James blasted a hole through the Bath defence, before Feyi-Waboso exploded into life.

The England wing cut a devastating line onto Skinner’s floated pass to score his first, then struck again after former Bath centre Will Butt burst through midfield.

“We showed the DNA of last season, where we talked about, if you can’t win, draw it; if you can’t draw, stay in the fight and get something out of the game,” said Baxter. “Even in the first half, there were times when we had to dig in. We made mistakes and we weren’t perfect, but we dug in.”

Bath, however, had the final say.

Varney was sin-binned and conceded a penalty try for deliberately knocking down a pass intended for Joe Cokanasiga, before replacement Ted Hill powered over to restore Bath’s lead.

Russell added the conversion and, although Skinner kicked a late penalty from 40 metres, Bath held on.

Baxter was particularly pleased with the physical edge his side showed after the previous week’s 45-24 defeat by Gloucester.

“Our physicality, our desire to work and our desire to stay in the fight when bad things happen were really good,” he said.

The Chiefs now face Newcastle with Baxter demanding his side carry that mentality into their next test.

“We’ve got a little bit of pressure on ourselves with the Newcastle game,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we react correctly to that pressure.

“If we start looking at each other and asking, ‘Why aren’t we beating Newcastle?’, we’ll have a similar performance to Gloucester. I don’t think we were actually prepared for Gloucester to be as tough a game as it was. We’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”