Exeter v Saracens: Five takeaways as ‘darkness starts to lift’ on struggling Chiefs but Premiership loses ‘credibility’
Exeter Chiefs celebrate Will Rigg score against Saracens.
Following a 31-22 victory for Exeter Chiefs against Saracens in the Premiership, here are our five takeaways from the fixture at Sandy Park on Saturday evening.
The top line
Exeter Chiefs rode their luck before deservedly beating arch-rivals Saracens for only their second victory of an otherwise forgettable Premiership campaign.
Rob Baxter’s men scored three tries in the last 16 minutes to overturn a five-point deficit and add to their solitary win against Gloucester, also at Sandy Park, a month ago.
There was no doubting Chiefs deserved the win, scoring five tries through Jack Innard, Will Rigg, Tommy Wyatt, Ethan Roberts and Dan Frost. But they were given a decent helping hand both from Saracens and Lady Luck.
Innard’s opener came with Sarries down to 14 men, Juan Martin Gonzalez in the sin-bin for a dangerous tackle. Wyatt’s third was awarded despite a suggestion wing Paul Brown-Bampoe had a heel in touch.
Roots bagged the fourth after a freak bounce of the ball eluded Fergus Burke, enabling Franco Molina and Frost to combine for the assist. And Frost’s fifth came with Sarries again reduced to 14, following Harry Wilson’s late dismissal.
None of which detracts from the performance of Chiefs, who left the field celebrating their first bonus point win since last May.
What it means for play-off race
Exeter’s feat in bouncing back from two hammerings in the Champions Cup denied Saracens a return to the top four. Mark McCall’s much-changed outfit could have gone second with victory, but failed to garner a single point.
Saracens will point to the fact they were missing 16 players to either injury or England, but having led 15-10 after 64 minutes they will be frustrated with themselves for not collecting so much as a losing bonus point.
They slip behind Gloucester, who moved into third with an impressive come-from-behind Slater Cup win over Leicester at Kingsholm. Exeter remain ninth of 10 in the table, 11 points behind nearest club Northampton.
While their win was nothing like as convincing as the 65-10 hammering they inflicted on the same opposition a year ago, Chiefs will absolutely take it.
Rivalry far from dead
Beforehand, Chiefs boss Baxter made a point of redefining the rivalry between the two clubs, effectively saying the acrimony which defined the period between 2015-20 when the two clubs had a duopoly over the Premiership crown, had gone with Chiefs’ decline.
The theory was that the need for clear heads took precedent over historic grievances given Chiefs’ failure to win more than one game in 14 league and Champions Cup starts – and that dwelling on the two finals they lost to Saracens in years where the Londoners were later found to have breached the salary cap was of no benefit.
Fat chance. Within moments the two sets of forwards had to be separated after the whistle as tempers boiled over. Eight minutes in and Gonzalez lifted and dropped Jacques Vermeulen on his head and was sin-binned, avoiding red because he was cleared out (by Greg Fisilau) before he could return the flanker safely to ground.
The combative tone remained throughout but it was Exeter who made a better fist of remaining disciplined. Saracens ended the game a man short after lock Wilson went shoulder to head on Rusi Tuima, eight minutes from time, and was red carded.
Respite for Exeter’s long-suffering fans
Man of the match Wyatt spoke of the relief in the home dressing room at the final whistle. Having shipped 121 points in their previous two outings this, he said, was a big moment.
“It is good to get a bit of morale going because it’s been a tough couple of weeks,” he added. “There have been dark times. But it makes you resilient when you have those times. It will only benefit us in the future.”
The darkness started to lift on 52 minutes when Rigg fended off Gonzalez to put Exeter ahead for the second time. Tobias Elliott’s second for the visitors ended any thoughts the home fans might have had of heading home singing ‘Will Rigg’s On Fire’ – to the tune of Freed From Desire – as Northern Ireland football supporters used to do in homage to their goalscorer Will Grigg.
But Chiefs were quickly back on it. Wyatt crossed after great work from there ever-alert Brown-Bampoe and when Roots and then Frost went over the game was won.
Exeter’s only previous victory, against Gloucester on December 29, led Henry Slade to declare that the winning feeling was ‘better than sex’. Nobody was about to make such a claim this time, but the smiles still spoke volumes.
Awful scheduling which rugby must address
Rugby’s ability to shoot itself in the foot knows no bounds. In December we had clubs forced to cross the hemispheres for a single match in the Champions Cup, leading to embarrassingly lopsided scorelines and an existential debate as to whether the competition should have expanded beyond its European borders.
Now here we are a month later with a single round of Premiership matches fitted in between the final pool round of the Champions Cup and the start of the Six Nations Championship. Moreover, with England players unavailable due a training camp in the northern Spanish city of Girona.
The upshot is a crucial round of matches played with shadow XVs. Champions Northampton were without 17 at Harlequins, Saracens minus 16 at Sandy Park.
Saints and Quins, to their credit, still delivered quality fare. Chiefs and Sarries provided plenty of entertainment too, certainly in the second half. But the credibility of a tournament already reduced to just 18 rounds by the loss of three clubs to liquidation demands a more coherent schedule. In fact, make that the credibility of the sport itself. Don’t hold your breath.