JACK Yeandle has been there, seen it, even got the t-shirt when it comes to the highs and lows of Exeter Chiefs.

From lifting English and European silverware to suffering heartbreak, the long-serving club captain has experienced it all.

However, this latest defeat - a gut-wrenching 48-14 loss to Bath in the Premiership Rugby Cup final - appeared to cut deep.

Sadly, there could be no excuses. No blaming the conditions, the officials, even the fine margins of the game. Instead, the Chiefs have to face the music after they were blown away by a second half storm by their West Country rivals.

For 40 minutes at least, the Chiefs gave as good as they got, heading to the sheds just three points adrift in a hard-fought encounter.

What followed, however, was a capitulation that does not augur well, even if the powers at be at Sandy Park insist otherwise.

All season the Devonians have talked about ‘learnings’ for their young array of talent. In the Premiership it’s been a tough slog, one which currently sees them sitting just one off the bottom of the standings.

Exploits in Europe’s Champions Cup proved equally testing, exiting at the pool stages without a win to their name.

The Premiership Rugby Cup, however, offered a glimmer of hope, something from which Rob Baxter’s troops could salvage their season. Opting to utilising many of their frontline stars for much of the competition, they cruised through the pool stages, easily saw of Sale Sharks in the quarter-finals, before eventually overcoming a stubborn Ealing Trailfinders in the last four.

Into Sunday’s final, the stage was perfectly set for the Chiefs to deliver. Handed home advantage against their top-flight rivals, hopes were high they could land the domestic trophy for a fourth time, whilst at the same time prolong Bath’s wait of 17 years for silverware for a wee bit longer.

The Chiefs started brightly enough, Stu Townsend sniping over early on, only to see his effort chalked off for a knock on by Franco Molina. Exeter’s wait for a first score, though, was not long in coming as Welsh international Christ Tshiunza found his way over the whitewash.

Home cheers, though, proved short-lived as Bath countered in an instance, Alfie Barbeary breaking away from an unguarded ruck to send Tom Carr-Smith in under the sticks.

Bath edged in front with a second try through winger Joe Cokanasiga, only for the Chiefs to counter at the other end when prop Scott Sio stretched out to level the game up.

With the half all but up, Ciaran Donoghue nudged his side in front with a penalty to give the visitors a slender advantage.

What followed in the second period, though, was a Bath tidal wave that the Chiefs simply could not avoid. Buoyed by some big-name inclusions off the bench, Andy Robinson’s men would run in 31 unanswered points, which included tries from Thomas du Toit, Tom Dunn (2), Ewan Richards and Louis Schreuder.

“Extremely disappointing,” assessed Yeandle afterwards. “It was nowhere near an Exeter Chiefs level of performance, particularly what we have shown in the group stages and the knockout games. We are much better than that, but full credit to Bath, they had a game plan and stuck to it.

“What stings the most is that it wasn’t a true reflection of ourselves. You can come off when you’ve lost a final by one score sort of proud of what you have done, but you can’t say you were proud of that performance.

“We’ve used this competition to make a few changes, tweak a few things here and there and just get that change up of getting some momentum into our season. The start of the season was disappointing in terms of results and it’s sort of accumulated into bigger things - and it’s accumulated into pressure ultimately.

“I think we have used this competition well to get minutes into boys and work on patterns of play, but it’s the way you use this result now. Do we sit there, sulk and mope about it - or do we use the experience to learn and get better, not just talk about them?

“We have to see improvements from it.”

As one of the elder statesmen in the Chiefs squad, a leader of past glories, the question posed to Yeandle was where are the next generation of on-field generals?

“There’s not a lack of leadership, there are plenty of leaders,” he said. “It’s not like you say ‘you’re a leader’ - leaders come naturally. That comes in any line of work, not just rugby. It’s a team effort that has ultimately cost us, but there are individual things that need to be looked at. People need to be accountable and hold their hands up. I’ll put my hands up and say I wasn’t good enough today.”

Yeandle’s honest assessment of event is nothing new, but the question remains at what stage in the learning process does the question need to be asked about what is effectively being learnt by this current crop of Chiefs.

“It’s not an excuse we want to hide behind,” added Yeandle. “As we just said in the changing room, we were pretty harsh on each other, but that wasn’t good enough. As I said, it’s making sure you do something with it. It’s not a learn if you just talk about it and don’t have a reaction off it. There has to be a genuine difference from what has happened to what is going to happen.”