Exeter Chiefs
Chopping. Losing, Feezing, Surviving
Chiefs
By ExTeddChief
March 25 2013
ExTeddChief looks back on a very cold evening at Sandy Park
Chopping. Losing, Feezing, Surviving
Friday night I was down in Plymouth. What in Rob’s name was I doing down there? Watching and cheering as the Plymouth Raiders basketball team beat the Mersey Tigers 93-79 in the BBL championship match. That did mean getting back on the 11:20pm National Express coach that I call The Grand Tour of South Devon at midnight. Which gets into Exeter about 1am and I’m in bed at 1:45.
I’m up at 7am for Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying but absolutely knackered so I decide to record that and get a couple more hours sleep. Eventually up 9ish I catch up on other sporting stuff including the qualifying. Off course all of this is in my Chiefs top as I was off to Sandy Park that afternoon.
The plan of course had been to meet up with my grandfather for the game but he had just returned from Egypt and was absolutely out of it but Dad was more than happy to catch a Chiefs vs Leicester match. Thing is we also had a family wedding to get to the following day which meant that I’d have to overnight in Teignmouth so he arrived at half 3 in the hope of getting us a parking spot at Apple Lane.
Apple Lane turned out to be chocka so we wound up parking in Sowton which was going to take an age to get out of and then hauled ourselves over the bridge and into the Curry House for half a pint.
Rugby wise the deal was pretty simple. Beat Leicester and we had another season in the Premiership to look forward to four games to try and get ourselves another season in the Heineken Cup. Gloscester were beating London Welsh and I was pretty sure that that in itself was going to be enough to keep us up. Dad was the first to point out how many internationals were going to be wearing Tigers shirts. “That’s Premiership rugby for you” was my response. I didn’t honestly think the Tigers were going to be bulletproof.
So we eventually made it to the Western corner of the SWCC, pretty high up as per my grandfather’s original request. Also seriously cold. Next to a couple of Leicester fans. Having a look at the Dream Team in the programme I asked Dad “do you remember any of these guys?” and got a response of “Oh...I remember him...” pointing at a guy called Keith Brooking. Anyway, showtime!
Thing is the most noticeable feature of this match was the cold. The match in general proved to be an arm wrestle but it was an arm wrestle in which we had the early edge with Steeno opening the scoring with a pen, Flood quickly replying and the two kickers slotted two more pens each with Steeno getting his right before the half time whistle.
In the meantime there were enough reasons for people to snark, certainly at the ref who made some interesting seeming calls and certainly from the Tigers fans to their players who had a habit of kicking the ball down our throats. Fine by me! Still, while we were very much in the game this was not my idea of classic rugby.
Half time and the mood was reasonably optimistic though, Dad and I heading for the toilet, me already needing gloves and we’d spent the first half largely just Chopping to keep warm. I guess it wasn’t quite as back as the Leinster Heineken Cup match when I stood in the NWT with one layer too few and had to deal with a still thigh for a fair chunk of the following day but it was still ice cold!
Second half well...both sides did have their moments and our kickers certainly found some good positions. Their kickers in the meantime were still kicking it down our throats, much to their fan’s annoyance.
Both sides through on enough fresh legs but neither side was giving an inch and the longer the match went on the less likely it seemed that there would be any tries. And as the clock ran down, you had to wonder if there were even going to be any more points. Credit to the Chiefs defence though, it was one of our best performances at that end for a while.
Eventually though that defence cracked thanks to another interesting call from the ref. Flood was always unlikely to miss. Now you never can count the Chiefs out and Steeno got the latest of chances to level things. Not this time though.
Well we eventually got out of the packed SWCC and hauled ourselves to the carpark and then down to my parents place in Teignmouth for the night.
Clocking up on my ipad later, it turned out the Gloscester’s win, helped by the fact that we did still come away with an LBP means that we will still be playing Premiership rugby in 2014! So if you see a Glaws fan in town, buy them a beer!
The Heineken Cup picture...well with four games to go we’re certainly not done. Wasps are the team to aim at and they’re a WBP away currently and we’ve got a trip to their place to come. Still very much up for grabs though.
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25/03/2013 16:45
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just reading it made me feel the cold all over again 
