THE Exeter Chiefs' final Championship game of the regular season at home to Birmingham & Solihull is no 'dead rubber' according to head coach Rob Baxter.

With the Chiefs' place in the promotional play-offs assured some time ago, and winless Birmingham locked into bottom spot, there could be a feeling that both sides might go through the motions at Sandy Park tomorrow (3pm).

However, Baxter says his side's final league phase fixture is vital to their preparations for the remainder of the campaign. He said: "Over the season, we've planned pretty well as to how we want to run things. You know this game is coming, you know the British & Irish Cup games are coming, and you know what is happening for the run-in to the play-offs.

"Our plan is to use all these games to get us just where we want to be. I understand that people are focusing on the play-offs and they want to get stuck into them, but for us this is a very important game in terms of our preparation.

"We'll do a few things in it that we definitely want to concrete down, things that are going well for us. We've got a squad of players that are all looking forward to it and, at the minute, we're in good physical form and we're raring to go.

"We don't look like a team that's come through two thirds of the season, so that side of things is fantastic. I don't really think we're thinking about getting the game out of the way so to speak, we're really just looking forward to just playing and playing well."

Although Birmingham have failed to win in the Championship this season, they have shown their willingness to cause an upset if given half a chance. The Cornish Pirates were nearly caught out in January, drawing 31-31 at Camborne.

Avoiding a shock defeat comes with its own pressures according to Baxter. He said: "The pressure is on us to perform, we've been one of the form sides for most of the season. Birmingham haven't won a league game and that puts us under pressure to perform to a certain degree and that's a good position to be in going into the play-offs where there will also be pressure."

And there will no shirking tackles or pulling any punches from the Chiefs despite the prospect of their first Championship play-off match next week against Nottingham at Meadow Lane.

"We've been in this position for months," said Baxter. "We qualified for the play-offs some time ago and it would have been easy to say 'let's be scared about the rest of the season and just make sure we get to the play-offs with everybody fit'.

"If you approach the season like that then you'll end up not doing very well. My decision has always been to attack this season and go for it, if we have injuries, we have injuries.

"I'm telling the squad that there are players who probably feel they are outside our starting line-up at the minute, who are closer than they think, and a lot of them will probably play a big part in how successful we are in the play-offs."

Baxter will use the last league game of the season to try out some alternative combinations in the back-row and in the backline.

Bryan Rennie is rested for the weekend after he took a heavy blow against Plymouth Albion in the British & Irish Cup last weekend, Matt Cornwell has been drafted in at inside centre to partner Nic Sestaret. Phil Dollman will move from centre to full-back.

In the back-row, Andy Miller and James Scaysbrook will both line up alongside Richie Baxter to afford Chad Slade a slight rest. Danny Gray has also been given a break for this weekend.

"We're picking on form and that's a very strong group of players," said Baxter. "There are a couple of changes but not a great deal. I'll be very interested to see James Scaysbrook and Andy Miller playing together in the back row."

Chiefs: P Dollman; M Jess, N Sestaret, M Cornwell, M Foster; G Steenson, H Thomas; B Sturgess, N Clark, C Budgen; T Hayes (capt), J Hanks; A Miller, J Scaysbrook, R Baxter. Replacements: S Alcott, H Tui, D Gannon, C Slade, T Johnson, C Stuart-Smith, S Jones.