Sale Sharks 18 Exeter Chiefs 11

By Whaley Shark
December 21 2014

Well, Christmas has come to the Whaley household and feeding random friends and relations (Smoked salmon and potato blinis, Coq au Vin with garlic mash, carrots, Savoy cabbage; Apple snow with Viennese biscuits if you're interested) has rather got in the way of a match report. Hopefully normal service will be resumed next weekend for the Tigers match.

But, to keep us ticking over, here are a few impressions. The first half was really frustrating- how on Earth, with all that possession and, at times, a two man advantage, were we unable to secure a convincing lead???? I don’t really think Exeter showed much beyond commitment and organisation, and you’d imagine they would have been the happier side at half time.

It took more than ten minutes into the second half for us finally to cross the try line, as we ran the ball left from yet another of our threatening rolling mauls. Mark Cueto may be slowing up but he’s certainly not lost his nose for a try. With a successful conversion, we finally had a bit of daylight between us and Exeter.

The gap got larger five minutes later, with a well-worked try, with Mike Haley running back a deep clearance kick from Exeter and penetrating to the Exeter 10 metre line. Quick ball to the left and a neat Danny Cipriani loop round the winger gave us an overlap and a second try. Danny was hurt in scoring, and was replaced by Joe Ford who saw his conversion attempt come back off the post.

That stung Exeter into responding and they exerted altogether too much pressure over the next 15 minutes. Finally we got a taste of our own medicine- penalty to the corner, rolling maul, Ostrikov yellow; penalty to the corner, rolling maul, Thomas Waldrom try. Fortunately the conversion went wide and we actually closed the game out without too many alarms.

I was delighted with the result. Exeter are no pushovers and two well worked tries on a filthy night contributed to a well-deserved win. It’ll be interesting to see if we can keep it going against an injury-hit and perhaps below par Tigers next Saturday.

Finally, a Merry Christmas to my reader(s)…..