Exeter Chiefs
Disappointed but Proud
Chiefs
By ExTeddChief
October 24 2010
Exeter Chiefs come so close but lose to table topping London Irish in front of a very lively crowd at Sandy Park.
Exeter Chiefs 9 London Irish 12
When I do sports reports on my personal website, being the statto that I am I tend to start with a paragraph on the history the two participants. This time around, forget it. This report is for an Exeter Chiefs Premiership game and every one of these games is history in the making.
All anyone needed to know coming into this particular match was that London Irish, Premiership leaders were coming to town. That and clouds were dropping their loads on the city on a regular basis and driving me nuts as a result. That and that highlights of the awesome Amlin Cup win in Bourgoin were playing in the Undercroft before the match – which meant it was a good idea to get to Sandy Park early!
The laugh with the Bourgoin highlights were that...well of course on the radio I couldn’t see anything. In the Undercroft I couldn’t hear any commentary over the folk band in the corner! What I saw though were the Chiefs at their best, with Haydn Thomas’s try looking as classy as it sounded.
Of course though my grandfather and I can never find each other in the Undercroft so it was off to a rather packed Karrimore for me and the sense of anticipation was mixed with some apprehension, could our defence handle the seemingly unstoppable force of Delon Armitage?
Well pre-match I’d been telling anyone who’d listen that it would be one hell of a rumble for both sides – that is most certainly what we got. Which side were meant to be leading the Premiership? You certainly couldn’t tell early on, neither side was ever really able to take charge and when it was the Irish that eventually blinked first by giving away a penalty, you’d have thought that thanks to Steeno it would be a straightforward three points. It wasn’t, and that put a dampener on things.
As it was, the Exiles wound up getting the opening points of the game thanks to a Ryan Lamb penalty. Some blowup during a scrum while the Chiefs were on the attack resulted in Steeno taking care of business at the second attempt but the match I found myself flashing back to was the 1st leg of last year’s Championship playoff final vs Bristol. It was messy, you’d have thought that one side or another would have been able to get a try by this point but no. I did dare to dream though when another Steeno pen gave us the lead. The Exiles and Lamb had other ideas though and we came into halftime level. Could have been a lot worse though and deep down, I know that things were going to plan.
Halftime meant finding my grandfather, grabbing a pasty and heading up to the top of the West Stand right in front of Rob Baxter himself. As I discovered during the Montpelier Amlin Cup game, the laugh with being that close to the coach is that you’re never sure if your cheering drowns out the official instructions.
Well the second half saw the Exiles have the opening attack but then the Chiefs fastbreaked(to borrow a basketball term) to leave the visitors scrabbling. In the meantime Rob was going nuts about some of the Irish play. With snarks from certain individuals about the Chiefs discipline it was ironic that it was an Exile that got binned – even more surprising that it was the Premiership’s golden boy! The visitors couldn’t exactly complain though. Somehow, the Exiles held out with only 14 men.
However, it wasn’t as if the visitors could get through our defence either, this was certainly a match characterised by a mixture of mistakes and attacks being bothered for which we can be impressed with our part of proceedings. Suddenly though Steeno was struggling and had to be taken off, not that that was ever going to neccersarilly doom us – Ryan Davis having been one of the more positive elements of the display against Montpelier. Sure enough, he fired the ball over the posts to send us all beserk. Things really were going to plan!
Now we had to hold out again as the Exiles looked for a winning try but once again the Chiefs had other ideas and it looked as though Sandy Park was going to see off its biggest threat yet on the ground of pure stubbornness...and Armitage being unable to catch the ball out wide!
Three points is never a secure lead in rugby though and we wound up losing the game out of pure stupidity. Lamb’s a solid enough kicker and the Exiles have been around the block too long to not be able to close out games.
How happy the visiting fans would have been with that win I don’t know. What those checking the match out on Sky Sports would have made of it I don’t know. As for me, well I already saw one comment from a member of the Tribe saying that he was “disappointed but proud”. I guess I can’t put it better than that.
Sure enough, we got a rumble and gave as good as we got, enough to get an LBP at least. We could well have got more, hence a slight feeling of unreality coming out of Sandy Park. What were you supposed to feel?
The answer: Satisfaction. Bring on the rest of the Premiership.
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24/10/2010 17:31
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:10:24:17:34:10 by Moorsman.
now need someone to volunteer for the Sarries Preview & Review
Good report ExTeddChief.
Tony
Irish,s forum makes interesting reading too.most posters
complimentry of CHIEFS performance.
