View From The 22

15. Joe Carpenter, 14. Tom O’Flaherty, 13. Marius Louw, 12. Rekeiti Ma’asi-White, 11. Arron Reed, 10. Rob du Preez, 9. Raffi Quirke; 1. Si McIntyre, 2. Nathan Jibulu, 3. James Harper, 4. Ernst van Rhyn ©, 5. Ben Bamber, 6. Jacques Verrmeulen, 7. Sam Dugdale, 8. Dan du Preez.

Replacements:

16. Ethan Caine, 17. Ralph McEachran, 18. WillGriff John, 19. Jos Gilmore, 20. Reuben Logan, 21. Gus Warr, 22. Ollie Davies, 23. Alex Wills.

A lot of players out still, but a solid starting 15.

No Burrow or Andrews?
Guessing Logan is lock cover?

Shame George Ford isn't included especially as he didn't play the last couple of England matches - is he injured?

Like the starting 15 - hopefully a combination of Raffi/Rob will use the backs more and give it a go.

Bench doesn't look overly strong. I thought we may have picked a stronger front row in prep for the big one at Quins next week? however not sure of injuries

Quins is 2 weeks. It's Bath at home next week.

We are getting all guys rested and I hope targetting home games and Champ Cup. Quins have are starting Marcus and Cadan this weekend immediately.

Exeter Chiefs:

15 Olly Woodburn

14 Paul Brown-Bampoe

13 Henry Slade

12 Will Rigg

11 Campbell Ridl

10 Harvey Skinner

9 Stephen Varney

1 Scott Sio

2 Jack Yeandle

3 Bachuki Tchumbadze

4 Dafydd Jenkins (c)

5 Andrea Zambonin

6 Tom Hooper

7 Ross Vintcent

8 Greg Fisilau

Replacements:

16 Julian Heaven

17 Will Goodrick-Clarke

18 Jimmy Roots

19 Lewis Pearson

20 Finn Worley Brady

21 Tom Cairns

22 Will Haydon-Wood

23 Dan John

Exeter Chiefs v Sale Sharks
Referee: Christophe Ridley (93rd game)
ARs: Harry Walbaum & Simon Harding
TMO: Dean Richards

Wasn't Christophe Ridley born in France and then flown immediately to an incubator
inside the Exeter ground, living there until he could be housed in the Hotel complex next door?
I may be mistaken in some of the details.

Now changed apparently.

Exeter Chiefs v Sale Sharks
Referee: Anthony Woodthorpe
ARs: Jonathan Healey & Simon Harding
TMO: Dean Richards

Mmm... suspicious, maybe SSR was on to something?

Not really. Pearce has reffed Exeter and he lives there.

Top start...12-0 down after as many minutes with handling errors and kicking errors a plenty.

Surprising stat read out on comms earlier... we (and Exeter) are bottom of the table for defensive turnovers won this season.

Simple case of no bros Curry, no turnovers? Or a deeper problem? Seems a big mad given we once prided ourselves on plenty of them.

Her need TWO try’s with 5 minutes left. Gus wat box kicks.

Get out of this club and take your boss with you.

Only saw bits and pieces of the game but seemed more of the same - though I did think Chiefs would win by more tbh

Fluffed lineout then fluffed pick up leading to a knock on not a good couple of mins for Caine at the end - do think we could do with picking up a "boring" setpiece hooker, all of ours play more like 7s and have iffy darts
(Same could be said with us signing another hybrid backrow/lock rather than the big lump we need)

Weird situation with the uncontested scrums - Harper looked ready to come on, but apparently deemed injured?
Doubt we were playing funny buggers considering the scrum was going well with the starters

Very poor start. No line speed, defensive gaps all over the show. Basic errors by the experienced players

Came back into it well - if tof changed the habit of a lifetime and passes to raffi it really would have been interesting

Hope wgj is ok - looked bad

Defence better second half. Having Dan back - big difference

Brain dead at end when uncontested and we went blind side away from all our own players then Gus took an eternity to get the ball

Least Quins lost

Harper looked to have an injured shoulder when he came off

If we had got off the proverbial bus 15 minutes quicker we could have come away with something today. Terrible start but thought from 15 mins on some much better stuff played especially in 2nd half. Too many handling errors though.
DDP looked back to his carrying form from 3 seasons back and Wills too seems to get better each game. Harper's scrummaging solid today.
Got to be 100% right next week or Bath will take us apart worse then they did to Sarries yesterday

LJK wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 21, 2026 9:15 pm

If we had got off the proverbial bus 15 minutes quicker we could have come away with something today. Terrible start but thought from 15 mins on some much better stuff played especially in 2nd half. Too many handling errors though.
DDP looked back to his carrying form from 3 seasons back and Wills too seems to get better each game. Harper's scrummaging solid today.
Got to be 100% right next week or Bath will take us apart worse then they did to Sarries yesterday

Agreed with all of that

My son cancelled his Discovery+ contract so I had no access to the match .... which was nice.
From the comments it was all very predictable. Roll on next season and hopefully a reset.

Olyy wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 21, 2026 6:11 pm

Only saw bits and pieces of the game but seemed more of the same - though I did think Chiefs would win by more tbh

Fluffed lineout then fluffed pick up leading to a knock on not a good couple of mins for Caine at the end - do think we could do with picking up a "boring" setpiece hooker, all of ours play more like 7s and have iffy darts
(Same could be said with us signing another hybrid backrow/lock rather than the big lump we need)

Weird situation with the uncontested scrums - Harper looked ready to come on, but apparently deemed injured?
Doubt we were playing funny buggers considering the scrum was going well with the starters

Wouldn't McElroy fit your hooker needs, Always thought he was solid the few times I've seen him

Bronzbronx wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 22, 2026 11:52 am

Olyy wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 21, 2026 6:11 pm

Only saw bits and pieces of the game but seemed more of the same - though I did think Chiefs would win by more tbh

Fluffed lineout then fluffed pick up leading to a knock on not a good couple of mins for Caine at the end - do think we could do with picking up a "boring" setpiece hooker, all of ours play more like 7s and have iffy darts
(Same could be said with us signing another hybrid backrow/lock rather than the big lump we need)

Weird situation with the uncontested scrums - Harper looked ready to come on, but apparently deemed injured?
Doubt we were playing funny buggers considering the scrum was going well with the starters

Wouldn't McElroy fit your hooker needs, Always thought he was solid the few times I've seen him

Yep, he's significantly better than Caine is
Can only guess not being EQP is counting against him

After time to reflect on yesterday's game I'm struggling to see too many positives other than the fact they stuck in the game after the first 15.

Handling errors, kicking errors, poor lineout, scrum got minced once they made changes, 2 tries conceded off first phase attack, relatively toothless and predictable attacking play. As long as we stick with Gus at 9, I'm afraid we won't be troubling anyone too much.

If Sanderson doesn't change it up, likely the coaching setup, he will have to fall on his sword.

WillGriff John - Latest news

“I have got to check on him but he has got a bang on his head," said Alex Sanderson.

“He has just come back from a lay-off because of a concussion, and when you back up concussions, generally it is wise to have a prolonged period of time out.

“That is what I can expect moving forward, but we will follow the concussion protocols and see where he is at.”


So he’s clearly out for some time. I’m surprised the TMO didn’t find any foul play.

Positives - Joe Carpenter.

That is all.

Not nice news about WillGriff, hope he recovers. Did he not have a spate of concussions
in his first stint with us ? Might be time to think deeply about his future.

Agree on Carpenter being a positive - has lovely feet and a lovely balanced runner

It was good that we didn't fall apart second half and tightened the defence up.

Most noticable is we didn't overly use the box kick and tried to play a more balanced game with the backs - when we did use the box kick - Raffi did pretty well with his kicks.

DDP back was great.

Of course some of those can be negatives with both Raffi and DDP leaving us.

Post the Quins games and depending on how we do I would like to see us continue to blend in some of the younger players. Is Curtis injured?

Not sure if it was my imagination, but has Warr started to get the ball away (when he passes) quicker?

All things considered I thought the overall perfomance at Exeter was OK, albeit, the problems were fundamental ones. There are regularly gaps in our defence that the average Oil Tanker would take advantage of. Our lack of thought when close to the try line, whilst not a new issue, is no less infuriating. The scrum with starters on was mostly excellent, and once Mr Woodthorpe stopped the Exeter front row stepping around us the replacements were pretty solid. The lineout was .... well it just was, I think one of Jibs throws was the most un-straight lineout I have ever seen. When we actually play rugby we aren't bad at it, I wish we would do it more often.