Exeter overcome youthful Saints in scrappy contest

Gallagher Premiership

Exeter (21) 42

Tries: Lilley, Skinner 2, Brown-Bampoe 2, Moloney Cons: Slade 5, Hodge

Northampton (7) 14

Exeter Chiefs gained some late season pride with a scrappy 42-14 victory over a youthful Northampton Saints at Sandy Park.

Chiefs’ debutant Nick Lilley and Saints’ Jake Garside exchanged tries before the home side took control on the verge of half-time with scores from Harvey Skinner and Paul Brown-Bampoe.

Tom Lockett reduced the deficit for the Saints soon after the break, but Martin Moloney’s opportunistic score put the game beyond the visitors before Brown-Bampoe and Skinner added late gloss to the scoreline.

With neither team likely to qualify for the play-offs, both were looking to give experience to younger players after difficult domestic seasons.

This was evident in a scrappy opening quarter littered with errors, as both teams struggled to get into a rhythm.

That was until Exeter pulled off an intricate set-piece move involving Henry Slade, Josh Hodge and finally Lilley, with the winger racing down the wing to score on his debut.

The Saints, resting most of their starters before the Champions Cup final later in the month, responded quickly.

With Will Rigg in the sin-bin following repeated Chiefs infringements, the visitors finally opted to go wide with Garside forcing his way through a closing gap to secure the Saints’ first points of the afternoon.

While there was no lack of effort, the lack of real quality was telling, with Slade forced to kick the ball downfield during an inviting counter-attacking opportunity because Hodge strayed ahead of him on the outside.

But seemingly out of nothing the Chiefs found their feet with a quick-fire double.

Skinner was first to cross the whitewash; the fly-half having read a wayward pass from Tom James close to halfway, before gathering and running clear to the delight of the home crowd.

The fans were on their feet again minutes later.

Knowing the game hung in the balance as they came out for the second half, the Saints quickly cut into the home side’s lead.

Following a quick tap from Jonny Weimann in front of the Chiefs’ posts, first-time captain Lockett stretched over the line to score despite two defenders trying to hold him up.

In the following play, Exeter should have had a fourth.

Skinner’s perfectly weighted grubber in the Saints’ 22 would not sit up for the on-rushing Hodge, who knocked the ball on with the try-line at his mercy.

But ultimately it did not matter with the Chiefs securing the try bonus point soon after.

Tom Cairns was responsible for pilfering the ball from debutant Archie Benson at the resulting scrum before feeding Moloney to score the easiest try of his career.

Exeter Chiefs’ director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Radio Devon:

“I made my mind up two weeks ago that I’m not going to sugar coat things. We’ve got to have some brutal honesty about what we did, some of that today was pretty poor.

“Some of our decision-making when we try to play a simpler system, to give them the opportunity to get through more than three phases and it couldn’t have been simpler, we were still struggling to get through three phases, we need to grow up a bit

“Our big problem is the crowd are quite happy we’ve got a five-point win today, I was fuming, absolutely fuming, it shows how much we have to cut out, of what’s wrong in what we’re doing and improve some very, very poor basics.”

Northampton Saints’ director of rugby Phil Dowson told BBC Radio Northampton:

“Most of the players put in an enormous amount of effort and work, they showed huge heart, clearly there are things we need to do better and clearly we’re not happy with the result, but I was delighted that for large parts today they performed really well.

“The two tries before half-time obviously hurt, and then towards the end it got a bit loose and we didn’t make them work hard enough for those scores.

“One intercept and one line break and then it’s a two score game and it becomes a bit more of a mountain.”

Exeter: Hodge; Lilley, Slade, Rigg, Brown-Bampoe; Skinner, Townsend; Sio, Yeandle, Street, Tuima, Jenkins, Vermuelen, Capstick, Roots.

Replacements: Frost, Blose, Iosefa-Scott, Tshiunza, Moloney, Cairns, Haydon-Wood, Tua.

Sin-bin: Rigg (21).

Northampton: Garside; Cousins, Seabrook, Litchfield, Glister; James, Weimann; West, Walker, Millar Mills, Prowse, Munga, Lockett, Brown, Scott-Young.

Replacements: Wright, Haffar, Green, Hunter-Hill, Logan, Benson, Witheat, Baker.