Sale Sharks 16 Exeter Chiefs 18

By Whaley Shark
November 2 2013

Well, this might only make sense to readers of a certain age, but I can remember an Andrex advert in which the cute puppy steals the toilet paper, leaving a small boy sitting on the toilet with his trousers down. While it might be stretching the analogy to describe Exeter Chiefs as cute puppies, they certainly left us sitting on the toilet with our pants round our ankles last night……

The tone of the evening was set early on- we pushed into Exeter territory and, just as we started to look threatening, a loose pass bobbled into touch. The lineout gave Exeter possession, we gave them a penalty, they kicked for touch and won the lineout, and we gave them another penalty to go 0-3 down after just 6 minutes. We equalised a couple of minutes later, then got our noses ahead just after the quarter hour with another penalty. But then the rot set in. Exeter set up shop in our 22 and built pressure. We conceded an easy penalty and Vadim Cobilas became the first in a procession of Sale players to keep the sin bin warm. Just a minute or two later, Exeter kicked a loose ball through and, while Danny Cipriani fell on the ball, regained his feet and cleared to touch, we gave Exeter another kickable penalty at the lineout.

Another sign of pressure beginning to tell on us emerged at about the half hour, with the first extended kicking exchange, ending with a soft knock on and an Exeter scrum 25 metres from our line. And what next? Another Exeter penalty and Tommy Taylor in the bin. We struggled to get out of our half at this stage and, with just a couple of minutes of the half left, we leaked yet another penalty and Kirill Kulemin joined Tommy in the bin. At 6-15 down the game was starting to drift away from us.

After half time, things carried on in much the same vein. Exeter were able to charge down our clearance from the kick off, we fumbled after the lineout and then gave them a penalty from the scrum. They were getting cocky now, though, and went for the corner. While we kept them out, we were under considerable pressure until we turned them over and managed to break out to half way. As the match returned to 15 a side, we were able to put Exeter under some sustained pressure but couldn’t quite get through a very robust Chiefs’ defence.

As the game entered the final quarter, both sides were evenly matched, both making frequent errors and neither able to gain the upper hand. As time pressure grew and we started to scramble for at least a losing bonus point, we ran the ball to about 30 metres out and, although we kept possession and ran through phase after phase, we made no progress and eventually we ‘took the three’ as Exeter were penalised. Two minutes later, we gave the three back by conceding a penalty on our 22 and, with time really running out now, we threw caution to the winds. Tom Arscott jinked his way into the Exeter 22 and, as the defence got sucked in, Danny Cipriani threw a huge pass out to Quates on the right, who just sneaked into the corner to make it 16-18 with a minute left. We didn’t seem to want to play all the way from our 22 though and, after a final exchange of kicks, Exeter decided it was time to bank the points and put the ball into touch to kill the game.

What to say about it? Massively frustrating, I guess. Yet again, Exeter turned up, did a job on us, took their opportunities and gave us very little. I have no idea if Sir was right or wrong but that succession of first half sin-binnings and penalties certainly says Exeter were smarter than us at playing the referee. I’m not sure Exeter offered much in attack, but they were well organised and defended like demons so, once they’d got into the lead, they certainly weren’t going to give it back. All in all, they were by some way the more professional side on the night and, from our perspective, this is another one that got away. Hey ho……………