Way back on the opening night of the season, Exeter began the defence of their Premiership title with a narrow injury-time defeat against Gloucester at Kingsholm. Those who took it as a sign the Chiefs might not hit the same lofty heights this season have been proved spectacularly wrong and here was yet more evidence of a team who feel they have more peaks to conquer.
An eight-point cushion at the top of the table with only three games left has secured their place in the play-offs and, barring a dramatic twist, Rob Baxter’s side are now within touching distance of finishing top of the regular season log for the first time. Two tries for Jack Nowell off the bench in his first game back after a six-week absence with an ankle injury sustained during an England training session merely emphasised the depth of their options.
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This contest was over by half-time with Exeter 22-3 ahead in front of the watching England head coach, Eddie Jones, and the Rugby Football Union’s chief executive, Steve Brown. Jones will have been reassured to see Nowell back in try-scoring form and quietly encouraged by the energy of a clutch of other candidates to tour South Africa in June. Henry Slade, Alec Hepburn, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Sam Skinner, Sam Simmonds and Don Armand all look bright-eyed and full of running as the domestic season enters the final straight. “We can still go up another few gears, I think,” said Exeter’s head coach Ali Hepher, delighted with his players’ second-half energy after a physically sapping first 40 minutes.
If this one-sided game was no classic in isolation, a chastened Gloucester were left in no doubt about the West Country’s current pecking order. More ominously still, the pitches are drying out and the less starry names on the Chiefs team sheet are improving by the week. Many of the club’s best days this season have featured the consistently impressive Skinner in the second row and there are few more mobile, busier looseheads in the country than Hepburn, the man of the match. The 25-year-old is now a capped international prop but he pops up so regularly at first receiver he could almost be wearing a double digit number on his back.
The shaggy-haired forward can also do the less glamorous hard yards and duly burrowed his way over for his side’s first try after 18 minutes. Exeter might already have been ahead had Lachie Turner and Don Armand not failed to convert a straightforward two-on-one opportunity but it was apparent from early on that the visitors were in for a long afternoon.
Virtually every time Slade touched the ball he looked a threat and the centre’s left-footed nudge to within five metres of the left corner also evoked memories of the Chiefs’ famous semi-final win against Saracens last season. Up soared Skinner to claim the lineout and over went Sam Simmonds, the same try scorer as 12 months ago.
If it helped that Gloucester, after a bright start, made too many errors and struggled to get on the right side of the referee, the Chiefs are also reliably good at extracting maximum reward in the opposing 22. With Ruan Ackermann in the sin-bin just before half-time for slowing down Exeter ruck ball with a boot, Hepburn was once again swift to react, his pass giving Olly Woodburn the space to pierce the stretched visiting cover. “Alec can make passes normal props wouldn’t,” Hepher said. “He’s a hell of an asset to have in your side.”
Gloucester’s head coach, Johan Ackermann, had also feared the worst from the early stages – “I felt after the first five minutes it wasn’t our day” – and his team’s chances of European qualification, let alone making the top four, now hinge on victories in their remaining two home games, against Harlequins and Bath, before they head to Saracens on the last weekend. A try against the run of play immediately after half-time from the replacement Calum Braley did yield some consolation but their heavy defensive workload caught up with them in the end.
Nowell was the chief beneficiary, popping up in the 58th minute to secure the Chiefs a bonus point and then wriggling improbably out of a tackle – “there’s not many people in the country who can do that,” said Hepher – to cruise away for his second five minutes later. By the time Gareth Steenson collected a loose ball to score Exeter’s sixth try, Gloucester’s opening-night triumph had long since been avenged.