By Squanto
September 11 2008
Squanto provides a preview of Sundays match at Camborne, where the Exeter Chiefs travel to take on the Cornish Pirates. Both sides will be dissapointed with last weeks outcome and looking for a return to winning ways. As usual a close tussle is expected and if it we get the same excitement as the last match between the sides we're in for a treat.
Cornish Pirates VS Exeter Chiefs
Match PreviewGames between the Chiefs and the Pirates seldom disappoint, loyal fans turn out in the droves to witness highly passionate games between local rivals.
I always look forwards to our derby matches against both the Pirates and Plymouth as these are the two guaranteed away matches that I never miss. These matches are never pretty to watch but clashes between the Pirates and the Chiefs are always edge of the seat stuff.Last season the scores were level with a home win for both sides. The 9 try fest that occurred at Sandy Park in January was our last encounter with a 39 / 29 win to the Chiefs. The tables were turned on the previous away leg with again a high scoring match of 30 / 23 win to the Pirates.
This year things are different, we have recruited well including some former Pirates players, as have the Pirates, however I think our strong financial standing compared to the Pirates problems has given us the upper hand.
Whenever I come home from a Chiefs match at Sandy Park come win or the loose my competitive nature makes me turn on the TV and then go straight to the BBC sport teletext pages to look up the scores of the other teams in our league. I’m interested to see how the other teams have done as well as looking at how our local rivals have done and more importantly the current league table.
Last Saturday was one of surprises, obviously I expected us to beat Leeds in the match that we threw away. However upon seeing the teletext pages I had to check twice to see that the Pirates had lost to Coventry 16 / 0. Upon reading their message board it appears that every Pirates fan was also as surprised and as disappointed.
So this weekend both teams go into a match following a previous weekend’s loss. This I think is going to put an emphasis on the match with both teams looking to make their mark as well as climbing up the league table not that the table really means anything until Xmas!
Our team selection keeps all of last week’s players apart from Garry K who I feel I need to say nothing about as many have already discussed this both positively and negatively on this board and I wish to sit on my barbed wire fence on this subject. On a positive note great to see Kev B back in again at number 9 a position he deserves to call his own following last week’s excellent performance.
This year is also my first attempt at the prediction table which after the first match I was running second in, so this week I’ve tried to use some science for the score rather than just guessing like normal. On previous form a Bonus point is a must for the Chiefs and so I predict a 27/10 win to us.
Looking forwards to hearing the Tribe in full force at the weekend, perhaps now as we have our own player, we now need the Oggy man to give us our own chant? “Oggy””Oggy” “Oggy” - “Chiefs” “Tribe “ “Chiefs”.