By ExTeddChief
December 15 2014

ExTeddChief gives us his personal take on Exeter Chiefs European 2014 adventure 

Daring to Dream in Europe

What can be said about 2014? It has not been a good year for the family Tribe! My uncle fought cancer for the bulk of the year, finally losing in late October, so yeah…not good. 

And yet, of course, it’s been a brilliant year to be a Chiefs fan. A first ever major trophy in the back end of last season and well…this season so far speaks for itself. When I was watching the Gloscester away match at the Walkabout early in the season, a guy told me that he didn’t think we’d make the playoffs this season. Well it’s now December, and we’ve still not dropped out of the top four. 

Of course though, recently we’ve been focussing on European matters. The only downer of this calender year has been failing to qualify for the new Champions Cup. So into the Challenge Cup we went and though that campaign started with a slipup in Bayonne, since then, well we’ve been pretty much flawless, the performance in La Rochelle being out of this world. 

And yet still, we had to face the Top 14 relegation battlers at our place. And we still had to beat them. It was our last home game of 2014. It was the nearest home match to Dad’s birthday so he got invited along. Rob wasn’t fielding our strongest squad, but it was still solid. A win was still expected. 

Saturday morning, as per usual means a swim at the Pyramids, before in this case Dad dossed about at my place before we swung round to my grandparents place for lunch. From there, it was off to Sandy Park. 

It was possibly Dads first Chiefs match of the season, and he’s a lot more efficient at carrying beer than I am. There didn’t seem to be that many French fans in town from what we could see. Time to rumble. 

Our guys did not hang around…surging forward and before we knew it we got a try…Kai Horstman claiming the credit. Ceri Sweeney…can do better conversions than that. 
Four minutes later and it was more of the same, this time in our corner of the pitch. Chiefs pack charge over the line…and the Batman theme plays. Greg Bateman claiming the credit. 

Didn’t realise it was legal to charge down a conversion kick. 
Fabian Fortassian slotted a pen to get the men in yellow off the mark but then one of their guys got binned and Sweeney finally slotted a pen. 

Sooner or later though, we were going to get a third try and it was one of Vainikolo’s surges that did the trick, making Dad recall that try of his at the Rec in the LV semi. Sweeney converted. 

On paper this may have been a relatively weak Chiefs side but the pack in particular still showed no mercy and it cost the home side first another player to the sin bin and then a penalty try. Securing the WBP in that fashion had an air of unreality to it but they all count, Sweeney converting. We could have gotten a fifth try before the interval but the ref thought otherwise. 

Still, WBP secured by half time. I went off to the toilet, Dad went off to get hot drinks…and missed the opening chunk of the second half because the queue for the coffee van gets insanely long. 

By the time he got back, the two sides had secured a try each. The Chiefs were still in a ruthless mood with Tom James surging through for our fifth try, Sweeney converting. After that though we took our foot off the gas a bit and gave visiting player Juilien Berger a chance to bomb it away from our defence. Try La Rochelle and it was converted as well. 

After that, well as much as it would have been nice to hold La Rochelle to under single digists, our next target was 40 points and we got that courtesy of our new F-15. Adam Hughes was not someone on my radar prior to the Glaws LV=Cup game but he certainly has a lot of speed on him. Sweeney converted that effort as well. 

Again, we got slightly complacent near the end, a La Rochelle lineout leading to Arthur Cestaro crossing the line and that try was converted. Another Chiefs try would have been brilliant but it wasn’t to be. 

Still, this was not our strongest lineup but this is what they did. And on top of our Premiership exploits, we are now on course for our first ever home European quarter final. The Geordies are currently on course for Sandy Park. Win that much and…who knows what could happen. 

Yet we still aren’t done with the group stages yet. The two Top 14 sides are now pretty much toast but Connacht are still hot on our heels and the next time we pick up European action we’ll be headed to their turf. By that point we may have been given a reality check in the Premiership. 

Hold on tight, this roller coaster’s not done yet.