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Exeter Chiefs

15 Stuart Hogg
14 Olly Woodburn
13 Ian Whitten
12 Tom Hendrickson
11 Tom O’Flaherty
10 Joe Simmonds
9 Sam Maunder
1 Alec Hepburn
2 Jack Yeandle
3 Marcus Street
4 Jannes Kirsten
5 Sam Skinnee
6 Dave Ewers
7 Jacques Vermeulen
8 Richard Capstick

16 Jack Innard
17 James Kenny
18 Harry Williams
19 Will Witty
20 Santiago Grondona
21 Jack Maunder
22 Harvey Skinner
23 Facundo Cordero

Sale Sharks

1. Bevan Rodd
2. Ewan Ashman
3. Coenie Oosthuizen
4. Cobus Wiese
5. Lood De Jager
6. Jean-Luc Du Preez
7. Jonno Ross
8. Daniel Du Preez
9. Raffi Quirke
10. A J MacGinty
11. Aaron Reed
12. Rohan Janse van Rensburg
13. Robert Du Preez
14. Tom Roebuck
15. Sam James

Replacements
16. Curtis Langdon
17. Simon McIntyre
18. ? Jones
19. J P Du Preez
20. Ben Curry
21. Faf De Klerk
22. Luke James
23. Byron McGuigan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2022:03:04:12:59:51 by Lowerwatha.

Match Officials

Referee: Wayne Barnes
Assistant Referees: Matthew Carley & Christophe Ridley.
TMO: Tom Foley

Weather as at 1200 Friday
Sunny intervals with a moderate breeze the east north east

Temperature 7 degrees but feels like 3 degrees

Low chance of rain

Television Coverage from 2.00 pm

Channel 408 BT Sport 1 SD
Channel 430 BT Sport 1 HD

Excellent news to see Jacques,Harry and Will Witty back in the squad. Great timing 👍

Another tight match, Chiefs to sneak it again 34-28

According to the Telegraph Jonny Hill is back in training with England and “is keen to put his hand up for selection “. I thought he might have been given a run out with Chiefs to prove his fitness.

Quote:

Lowerwatha
Sale Sharks
1. Bevan Rodd
2. Ewan Ashman
3. Coenie Oosthuizen
4. Cobus Wiese
5. Lood De Jager
6. Jean-Luc Du Preez
7. Jonno Ross
8. Daniel Du Preez
9. Raffi Quirke
10. A J MacGinty
11. Aaron Reed
12. Rohan Janse van Rensburg
13. Robert Du Preez
14. Tom Roebuck
15. Sam James

Replacements
16. Curtis Langdon
17. Simon McIntyre
18. ? Jones
19. J P Du Preez
20. Ben Curry
21. Faf De Klerk
22. Luke James
23. Byron McGuigan

Fielding ten South Africans (six of them in the pack) seems a bit much… (plus an Irish-American, a Scot and a Scottish-Namibian). The Kolpak exemption for South Africans might be gone as soon as the start of next season, hard to see how Sale get a side out when that happens.

Chiefs 30 Sale 20 to keep the momentum going. Not able to get to this one as I'll be on my way home from the far end of Cornwall though a pub near Saltash train station says they'll be screening the game, fingers crossed.

Not in a nasty way, but I hope Josh Hodge is injured else being left out all together is a massive kick in the teeth for him after last week

I think quite a difficult prediction. We are at home and we must win ideally with a bonus. Sale though have a very good lineout and we have been poor with Yenz starting who is our most erratic man with the darts. There will be a lot of dominant tackles and the breakdown will be really competitive. Sale have a dangerous scrum half and a ten who is good at kicking. Windy but good underfoot. Wayne Barnes the ref so I expect a card or two - perhaps Jono Ross - so I hope we stay legal. Providing we take our chances I hope for a close win but quite worried if their forwards always break the gain line. Chiefs 34 Sale 32

Quote:

TqyAndy
Not in a nasty way, but I hope Josh Hodge is injured else being left out all together is a massive kick in the teeth for him after last week

My thoughts too, would have thought if he was fit he would be in the 23 in place of Cordero.

Think Josh is being rested, he has put a lot of great work in recently plus the knock at Newcastle. He will be doing a lot of work in weeks to come.
So we are facing a South African pack (well mostly) so our boys especially our SF contingent will have to fight for everything. Need the scrum to stand up and Jack to find his man at the line out.
Set piece will be important against this abrasive team, so glad Big Dave is staying fit, it’s going to be hard. Another reason Hogg is playing maybe as he does have the bulk to break tackle where Josh would struggle.
Chiefs 32 Sale Saffas 20 living in hope, but I think a certain person has re discovered his kicking mojo.

Im not sure that Whitts and Hendrickson is a very creative midfield but i guess we will need some power.

Does anyone know what the latest with Ollie Devoto is?

Exe 36 - 24 Sale but I could be wrong!

Quote:

Not Manichean
Im not sure that Whitts and Hendrickson is a very creative midfield but i guess we will need some power.
Does anyone know what the latest with Ollie Devoto is?

Oddly enough the Telegraph ran a feature this week of likely replacements for Manu Tuilagi in England 12 spot this week and Ollie was touted alongside Max Ojomo, Ollie Lawrence and Mark Atkinson.
Strange because he has hardly played for us this season. Great player but constantly in rehab!

Exeter 31 - 30 Sale. Crowd to shout our boys to victory.

Chiefs 29 - Sale 16

Generally we get a win over Sharks especially at home, so I’m hedging on a home win by 6 this week:

Chiefs 29 - 23 Sale

Tough call on this one with their top 2 scrum half's making the play going for a chiefs 2 point win chiefs 13 sale 11.

Good to see one or two players back, will be a tough ask against a very physical and abrasive Sale team. Would like to have seen Grondona start at 8 only because he is more natural in that position than Capstick. How Sam Maunder keeps his place is hard to gauge as he has made massive errors costing us points in every game he has played. Fingers crossed he can have a good game as we need a very positive impact from our 9 this weekend. Will be close if we can win our scrum and line outs.

Sale are a strange club, trying to bring short term success by playing lots of overseas players, having in excess of 50% SA starting and on bench surely cannot be a sustainable model to creating a real local club atmosphere. I think they must have the most non homegrown players in world rugby. Nothing wrong with this under the rules just seems a strange way to run a professional rugby club where there are so many EQ academy credits available. I suppose the way they have built their squad they are not going to be too impacted by many 6N call ups. Looking forward to seeing their young 9 I think he is a great international prospect for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿.

I'm with you Andy15.... can't understand the scrum half selection?! Whatever your views on our scrum halves seems a bit weird that Jack was being rested(?) during the 6n period but to leave him on the bench for this one makes you scratch your head!
Anyway, to the prediction game... delighted to see Jacques back along with some other heavyweight power in the pack....much needed against an abrasive Sale.so going for a chiefs win but not such a high scorer as others have predicted... chiefs win 19-15.c'mon chiefs!

chiefs 21- 17 sale

Quote:

Lowerwatha
Match Officials
Referee: Wayne Barnes
Assistant Referees: Matthew Carley & Christophe Ridley.
TMO: Tom Foley

Really?! Should be fantastic and faultless! Have we ever had such a prestigious officiating team?
Looking forward to seeing Big Dave with his old mate Big Jacques! Chiefs 35: Sale 18

In Rob we trust.
By the way - cream on first. There's nothing to debate.

Chiefs 33 Sale 18

I believe they are trying to balance resting JM with giving SM some critical game time. SM is a good player but clearly needs to be playing some rugby to progress. Results so far during the 6 nations have been better than I had expected, so can’t complain really !! I really hope the A league can be started again next season, so many players need it.

Home win for Chiefs. Chiefs 25 sharks 22

Quote:

Andy15.1
Sale are a strange club, trying to bring short term success by playing lots of overseas players, having in excess of 50% SA starting and on bench surely cannot be a sustainable model to creating a real local club atmosphere. I think they must have the most non homegrown players in world rugby. Nothing wrong with this under the rules just seems a strange way to run a professional rugby club where there are so many EQ academy credits available. I suppose the way they have built their squad they are not going to be too impacted by many 6N call ups. Looking forward to seeing their young 9 I think he is a great international prospect for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿.

I think the ten English players in their squad are all academy products. But half of them are on the bench and (mainly) being kept out of the starting lineup by their imports. Which is perhaps why local players like Cam Redpath move to other clubs. I agree, v strange way to structure a club.

Great to see us getting key players back in the team.
My recent predictions have been negative and have resulted in good performances for Chiefs! So, I'm in a quandary, do I embrace the positivity around returning players and predict a win or carry on my lucky negativity?
As it's Sale and I have a irrational dislike of Alex Sanderson I'm going to go for some, hopefully lucky, negativity.
Chiefs 19 Sale 24

On the number of South African players point, I don't blame Sale for recruiting players who are available all year round. It's not something I want too see at Chiefs, but I can see why teams would do it! How many times with we see some of our internationals in an Exeter shirt this season, especially our English Lions! Value for money is going to become increasingly important as the cap drops.

Sale do lose players to SA such as de Klerk and du Jager but are off-loading some of their imports at the end of the season. Unfortunately they are nicking some of ours as replacements!

Quote:

Big Chief Little Chief
On the number of South African players point, I don't blame Sale for recruiting players who are available all year round. It's not something I want too see at Chiefs, but I can see why teams would do it! How many times with we see some of our internationals in an Exeter shirt this season, especially our English Lions! Value for money is going to become increasingly important as the cap drops.

Except that might not be an option for teams going forward. Currently, thanks to EU law (the Kolpak ruling), teams don’t have any limit on the number of South Africans or Islanders (but can only field 2 “Foreign Players” eg Kiwis/Aussies/Argentinians). This is written into the Prem Rugby Regulations. Now we have left the EU, the Prem Regs are due to be updated. This will remove the South African exception. I’d expect the clubs are haggling behind closed doors to see what the new number of “Foreign Players” will be, but the days of putting out ten South Africans are about to disappear. Which is perhaps why Sale are offloading so many of them at the end of this season.

Worth a punt on McGuigam getting a card?

He and Ian Whiiten have quite a lot of history and of the two id bet on Whitts to keep his cool.

Results haven't gone for us this week. This is a big game for us if we're to keep in the race ... COYC!

In Rob we trust.
By the way - cream on first. There's nothing to debate.

Chiefs 28 - Sale 24

Exe 31 - 26 Sale

Sale's bench looks very strong, will not want to go too many points behind in this game

Rather more hopeful than confident!
Mrs PC 22 - 19
PC 24 - 19

Can't really say I feel particularly confident with this one - Chiefs 20 Sale 24.

I could be (and hope) I'm wrong

A few changes to what were a few strong team performances so I hope there isn’t any rustiness with some. Keeping the faith that the changes are for the better. Home advantage too and yet I am not too confident either but I’ve decided we will want it more!
Chiefs 28 Sale 24

Pasig Beer cans says 30-15 to Chiefs

Clalan maintains his lead but with another four within 4 points.
41 Points: Clalan
40 Points: Bold Eagle
39 Points: Mike the Shirt; Cornwall Chief
37 Points: Mrs PC
36 Points: Osmium
34 Points: Fisher
33 Points: DumnoniiNomad
32 Points: Chief Firewater; Ex 58
31 Points: Plympton Chief; Curry Chief
30 Points: Ouch That Hurts; The Stoke Canon
28 Points: ExTeddChief
26 Points: Thomas Hawk; Big Chief Little Chief
24 Points: Keithbar54
22 Points: Last of the Beercans
18 Points: Exeterfan
13 Points: Ljs399
10 Points: Father Alice
8 Points; Scottish Chief
7 Points: Lapo
6 Points: Alain le Chief
22 entries this week out of a possible 32. Some seem to have given up the ghost.