At a time when the cartel instincts of some of the millionaires in charge of top-flight clubs are manifesting themselves in talk of ring-fencing, dressed up as suspending relegation for at least four years, and tightening up the entry criteria to make it virtually impossible for anyone without state-of-the-art facilities to join the elite, the West Country arrivistes continue to charge through doors marked private.
A sellout crowd saw Exeter record their first Premiership double over the champions and leaders, Northampton, to move back into the top four of the table in some style. The Saints may have been coming off the back of a heavy defeat in Clermont Auvergne but in recent years they have shown immediate powers of recovery from very bad days in Europe. After going into the interval three points behind despite playing into the stiff wind, however, they were dismantled in an area of perceived strength, the scrum.
Tomas Francis was hardly a well-known name in Exeter at the start of the season when he joined from London Scottish, never mind the wider rugby world which has since taken in Wales who invited the 21-stone prop to training during the Six Nations but he added to a growing reputation by getting the better first of the Lions prop Alex Corbisiero and then of Northampton’s other loosehead, Alex Waller, who found himself in the sin-bin five minutes after coming on.
While Northampton talked about the possession they had wasted, which was in part due to the relentless pressing of Exeter, led by the flanker Dave Ewers, and the futility of kicking to keep the ball in play when they needed to put it dead and ensure a period of territorial dominance, the key difference between the sides lay up front. While Ewers was named man of the match for his ubiquity and irrepressible will, the standing ovation Francis received when he was replaced near the hour was testimony to his impact.
Exeter’s lead was then 21-5, the game all but won. They had taken the lead with a Henry Slade penalty on 10 minutes, awarded against Corbisiero at a scrum, and improved it with a try from Phil Dollman after the full-back, receiving a high pass from Slade, had the eye for a gap and the pace to get through it, not for the last time. Dollman was denied a second try after picking up a Luther Burrell fumble to sprint 80 metres to the Saints’ line but a replay showed he had fumbled the ball before picking it up, and he regularly embarrassed a defence renowned for its meanness.
Exeter had given themselves first use of the wind but a mixture of basic errors and indiscipline cost them position. When they wasted a penalty kick to touch nine minutes from the break by losing the subsequent lineout and, after Jack Nowell had missed a routine tackle on James Wilson, finding themselves outnumbered as Wilson smartly banked his eighth league try of the campaign.
Exeter did not score again in the half but they tilted the match towards them by finding a means to lay anchor: the scrum. At one point, they trailed 5-1 in the penalty count only to be awarded the next 13, nine at the scrum with most coming on Francis’s side. Northampton lost three players to the sin-bin between the 36th and 51st minutes, Calum Clark for killing the ball on his own line, Stephen Myler for deliberately knocking the ball on and preventing Matt Jess from receiving a try-scoring pass and Waller for taking down a scrum for the second time in a minute.
Exeter scored 13 points when Myler and Waller were off, two Slade penalties and a penalty try awarded after a forward-moving scrum was thwarted. Northampton had the wind with them but remained pinned in their own half until it was too late for them to affect the result.
Jamie Elliott’s try with the last move of the match prevented the indignity of their heaviest league defeat of the season, but no more. The Saints are six points ahead at the top with London Welsh among their remaining three fixtures with a home draw in the play-offs no longer looking nailed on, but the assurance that characterised their play for so long was missing: even Myler made howlers by kicking two restarts dead. They lacked control.
“I saw enough good today to know we can do well this season,” said the Northampton director of rugby, Jim Mallinder. “We were well beaten last week by a good team but that was not the case today.”
Exeter face play-off rivals Wasps and Saracens away in their next two matches. “We have been told for a while that we had a tough run-in but to me that means great games,” said their head coach, Rob Baxter. “We are where we are because we have dealt well with defeat and learned from experience.”
Exeter Dollman; Whitten, Nowell, Hill (James, 75), Jess; Slade (Steenson, 77), Chudley (Lewis, 75); Moon (Rimmer, 58), Yeandle (Taione, 67), Francis (Brown, 56), Mumm (capt), Lees (Skinner, 75), Ewers, White (Horstmann, 58), Waldrom.
Tries Dollman, Penalty. Con Slade. Pens Slade 3. Sin-bin Mumm 20.
Northampton Wilson (Tuala, 61); K Pisi, G Pisi (Stephenson, 65), Burrell, Elliott; Myler, Fotuali’i (Dickson, 55); Corbisiero (A Waller, 45), Hartley (capt; Haywood, 61), Denman (Mercey, 45), Manoa (Dowson, 71), Day, Wood, Clark, Dickinson (Fisher, 55).
Tries Wilson, Elliott.
Sin-bin Clark 35; Myler 41, Waller 50.
Referee W Barnes. Attendance 12,139
