EXETER Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter admits he and his side are in a 'no-win' situation ahead of tomorrow's Championship trip to struggling Birmignham-Solihull (3pm).

Unbeaten in six starts, three points clear of second-placed Nottingham, it has been the ideal start to the new-look season for the ambitious Devon club.

The Midlanders, meanwhile, are a club in crisis. On the field, last season's National League Two champions have just a point to their name. Off the field, club officials are working tirelessly behind the scenes just to ensure the club still exist within the coming weeks.

With a £93,000 Inland Revenue debt still outstanding, plus a number of their current squad heading for pastures new in recent weeks, it is little wonder that Baxter's opposite number, Russell Earnshaw, is hardly relishing the visit of the table-topping Chiefs this weekend.

Buoyed by notable victories over Bristol and London Welsh in the past fortnight, the contrast between the two clubs is underlined by the fact that Baxter is able to make a whopping 13 changes to his starting XV from last Saturday, whilst Earnshaw is merely hopeful of finding 22 players to take to the pitch at Sharmans Cross Road.

Only skipper Tom Hayes and fellow forward Chad Slade remain in an Exeter side which, should they win this weekend, will record their best-ever start to a National Leagues season.

Ironically, it was back in 1995/96 – when Baxter was indeed Exeter skipper – that the club recorded six successive wins on the bounce. A lucky seventh victory is now the prime objective for both himself and his team.

Baxter said: "Ideally, if you're going to beat any stats, I'd much prefer our winning run to be at the end of the season because then you know what your prize will be. That said, what we have done so far this season has been fantastic because you go out to win every game.

"You are never going to say 'it doesn't matter' because of course it matters. If you're preparing to win, preparing to play well, and all your focus is on creating winners, it's fantastic when you start winning game after game. The challenge now is to keep that going for as long as possible.

"Each week I keep telling the guys to enjoy what they are doing and relish being top of the table. Our aim is to make it hard for others to knock us off and hopefully that is the attitude we will have every week."

Indeed, Baxter rejects talk that his plethora of changes for tomorrow's game is a sign of arrogance on his or his club's part.

He added: "I am very aware that we have probably written Birmingham's team talk for them. I am also aware that some people may think because we've made all these changes, it's us being arrogant and not taking the game seriously.

"My opinion is we have set ourselves various targets over the first six weeks of the season and we are very much on course with all of them. Perhaps one of the things that we haven't quite managed to do is share the game time around as much as I would have liked.

"So far we have relied on quite a strong core of the squad to get us through most of the fixtures. Of course it would have been easy to carry on picking the same 22 week in, week out, but the season is not about that.

"Throughout I have been watching a squad of players who are preparing very well each week – and the guys who are not in the 22 have been fantastic for the club and for the team in helping our preparation. Each week they have maintained their focus and now it's great to see the likes of Sean Marsden, Nic Sestaret, the Millers – Andy and Alan – Chris Budgen and Saul Nelson come back into the equation again.

"Those kind of guys have been key members of the squad at other times and I simply want to get them back up to speed and back playing as quickly as I can. I know this is a lot of changes in one go, but with the start we've had, I feel this is the right game to look at other things."

Exeter Chiefs: J Matavesi; S Marsden, P McKenzie, T Bedford, N Sestaret; D Gray, R Bolt; R Murphy, S Nelson, C Budgen; S Tomes, T Hayes (capt); C Slade, Alan Miller, T Johnson. Replacements: S Alcott, B Moon, C Bentley, Andy Miller, H Thomas, G Steenson, B Rennie.