An early Xmas present for Exe?

Sandy Park
By Exeforever
December 10 2008

With Exeforever forcasting a Chiefs win but will this weekend's fixtures have enough in them to also bring an early Christmas present for Exeter fans? There's one thing for certain Pete Drewett has given another group of players their chance to impress and increase his selection headaches.

Match Preview

Exeter Chiefs v Esher

Our record against Esher reads played 4 won 4, if it doesn’t read played 5 won 5 by 4.45 on Saturday it will be the biggest shock of the season and will have marked the end of another year of aspiration.

However Saturday is more than just the game against Esher. It is the first match of the second half of the season and the part of the table that matters reads: points -2, points difference -72. Whilst it may be too much to expect us to overturn the entire points difference deficit in one afternoon, Saturday does represent an opportunity to make substantial inroads into it given that Leeds have a potentially very difficult game at Nottingham and even if Leeds win we can reasonably expect their margin of victory to be in single digits.

The team selection is interesting because Pete has obviously decided that he can safely rest as many as 9 of the likely selections for the Leeds game next week reckoning that rest is preferable to match fitness but also avoiding the possibility of injury in a game in which we should be able to garner 5 points even with the “second-ish” XV playing. Of particular note is the welcome return of Bryan Rennie and Bentos from injury and of Chad Slade. If things don’t go entirely to plan the bench is groaning beneath the weight of talent on it and, as usual, the players who aren’t in the matchday 22 at all (Marsden, Drauniniu, Lewsey, Stephenson, Johnson, Hayes…………….) would still produce a side that would be too good for most teams in this division.

The essential matter however is to concentrate on the game in hand and for the players not to allow their thoughts to run forwards to the Leeds clash; in previous seasons we have seen disappointing games in the week before crunch matches and this year we cannot afford to let our attention wander for one minute of the game’s duration.

The bottom line is that a victory by less than 60 points will be a disappointment; a victory by 70, plus a win for Nottingham on Sunday however, would mean that Christmas had come early this year.