Directly of rugby Rob Baxter admitted a lack of experience contributed to Exeter Chiefs' mauling at the hands of Bordeaux Begles at Sandy Park on Saturday. The visitors inflicted a record defeat on Exeter, blasting them away 69-17 in the Champions Cup with a ruthless performance.

Exeter had surged into an unlikely early lead, with Paul Brown-Bampoe scoring a wonderful 90m solo try. But tries from Maxime Lucu (2), Damian Penaud, Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Maxime Lamothe saw the Top 14 leaders storm into a commanding 31-5 half-time lead.

It was the second half that saw them run riot though, with Penaud bagging two more, and Cyril Cazeaux, Bielle-Biarrey, Matthieu Jalibert, and Yann Lesgourgues completing the route. Brown-Bampoe and Ben Hammersley did restore some pride for Exe, but there was no hiding the gulf in class between the two sides. Not even a red card for Bordeaux prop Toma Taufa late in the second half could change the complexion of the game.

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When asked if his backline were naive defensively, Baxter replied: "A little bit. You could see that on some set-piece stuff, but they are a bit of a young and naive backline. That's the reality of it.

"Zack Wimbush has great potential but he hasn't played that much rugby. Paul Brown's come back in today - those Premiership games he played at the start of the season were his first Premiership games.

"We aren't blessed with experience in any set of positions. Our back three was completely reshuffled because our starting back three is injured and we're going to have to work our way through it. I'm not going to sit here and make any excuses or any light of it, we have a lot of hard work to do."

A ruthless Bordeaux put the Chiefs to the sword in what was a record Champions Cup defeat - surpassing the 64-21 loss to Toulouse four weeks earlier. It was also the most points the Chiefs have conceded in any fixture at Sandy Park.

It continues what has been a difficult campaign for the Chiefs so far, who remain without a point in their pool. Unlike the Toulouse defeat though - which, despite the one-sided scoreline, saw some encouraging signs from this young Exeter side - there were few positives to take away from the battering against Bordeaux.

"The scoreline has got away from us and showed it for what it was - a bit of a stuffing," Baxter said. "I would like to think it would be a good learning experience down the line for us, but right now, it has taught us that we have to work extremely, extremely hard on our foundations around set-piece and our systems in attack and defence."

"If you watch that initial period, I don't think we did one particular thing together. We had loads of guys jumping around, fighting and trying to have a big effect on the game, but it kind of stopped us doing things as a team.

"I think we settled down after half-time and got through a bit more. You could see some periods of good play, but the minute something disrupted us, you could see us go 'ahh!' and then a try would happen."