Exeter Chiefs back-row forward Chad Slade admitted to feeling very nervous before making his comeback from injury against Bath at Sandy Park last Sunday.

Slade had been ruled out for several weeks after partially rupturing the medial collateral and posterior cruciate ligaments in a knee.

His last first-team action had been in the home Amlin Challenge Cup game against Cavalieri Prato in mid-November, when he came off the replacements’ bench.

However, the Samoan played the full game in the

31-3 defeat by Bath in Exeter’s final LV= Cup pool match, bar a ten-minute period early in the second half when he was briefly sacrificed to allow Tom Cowan-Dickie to come on as a front-row replacement for sin-binned hooker Chris Whitehead.

“It was two bad injuries in one go, but full credit to the back-room staff at Exeter, they got me back earlier than expected, which was good,” Slade said.

“It was awesome to be back out on the pitch and good to get in amongst it with the boys, because it has been a while for me, but it was disappointing about the score.

“The nerves got to me, it has been that long since I have played, and I was actually feeling really sick before the game, but it was just good to get out there.”

With no more cup matches until April, and the same for Premiership A League games, it is not going to be easy for Slade to continue to build up his match fitness, as the competition for back-row places in the first team is very fierce, but he is feeling very good.

“I have come back a lot fitter than pre-season,” said Slade, who turned 30 last month and is out of contract at the end of this campaign. “Our fitness guys absolutely gave it to those of us who were injured, but it was good.”

Exeter were always going to be up against it in what was a meaningless game for them in terms of qualification for the LV= Cup semi-finals, with Baxter fielding a makeshift line-up against a very strong Bath side packed full of internationals.

However, the Chiefs deserved credit for the way they restricted their visitors to only five tries. “The team Bath brought down shows they have got a bit of respect for us. It was pretty much their first team, so full credit to the boys,” said Slade.

“We had a lot of young boys out there and a lot of them played quite well.

“Even when we were down to 14 men in the second half, the boys dug deep, and it just shows we are there for each other, and we gave it the best we could.”

Exeter return to Aviva Premiership action on Saturday with a home game against Leicester Tigers, and the performances of a handful of players against Bath will give the selectors something to think about.

“It is good to have a few of the boys back from injury and it is up to the coaches now,” said Slade. “A few of the boys played well, and we will look forward to getting our rehab done in the next few days as we prepare for Leicester next weekend.

“We beat them earlier in the season, and we have definitely become a better team since then, but so have Leicester.

“We have learnt a lot over the course of this season, and hopefully, if we can stick to our game-plan, we will come out with a win.”