Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter expressed his satisfaction with the performance of his young backs during their 38-26 pre-season victory over Ospreys. England Under-20s centre Nic Lilley and fellow youngster Campbell Ridl started the game, with Ridl scoring two tries.

With key players like Tamati Tua likely out for the season due to injury and others such as Henry Slade, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, and Len Ikitau representing their countries, Exeter's younger players are expected to seize more opportunities, especially at the season's outset.

"That's a great sign for us in the strength through the side," Baxter told BBC Radio Devon. "You've talked about breeding that next generation coming through, that showed today that we kind of made the right decision going with our younger academy EQP [England Qualified Players] type lads."

He added, "They did very well for us there in that first half, especially when we gave them some really hot ball. That's the bit I'm pleased about is we looked crisp and we looked we could move at pace with hot ball and that's been a little bit of an Achilles heel for a couple of years."

Exeter has focused intensively on improving their game speed and precision during the pre-season, and the players have embraced this approach. "We've worked very hard on in pre-season and the lads really bought into it how they produced those kind of pieces of hot ball that allowed us to look dangerous," Baxter noted.

Exeter will kick off their season on Friday night with a match against Gloucester in the Prem Rugby Cup at Kingsholm.