{"id":488560,"date":"2026-03-22T01:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T01:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/488560\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T01:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T01:43:13","slug":"the-disappointing-thing-to-exeter-chiefs-despite-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/488560\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘disappointing thing’ to Exeter Chiefs despite victory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exeter Chiefs<\/a> attack coach Dave Walder praised the way his team linked together after a two-month break from Prem rugby due to the Six Nations<\/a> Championship with a 26-14 home win over Sale<\/a> Sharks.<\/p>\n

Chiefs<\/a> enjoyed a flying start with two tries in the opening 12 minutes from Stephen Varney<\/a> and Campbell Ridl<\/a>, with Olly Woodburn<\/a> also crossing to help give Exeter a 19-7 lead at the interval.<\/p>\n

Paul Brown-Bampoe then secured a bonus point with his second-half try as Chiefs held Sale at bay to move third in the table.<\/p>\n

Walder said: \u201cWith 10 minutes to go, we made it a little bit harder for ourselves than maybe we could have done, but we are ultimately delighted with the victory after a short week, guys coming back from long-term injuries and international duty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key was how quickly we gelled, and in the first half I thought we were outstanding. In the second half we probably took our eye off the ball a little bit and Sale came back into it, but it was about getting the result.<\/p>\n

\"Team Match Summary \"Team <\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to start fast at home, get the crowd behind you, and show you are right in the game emotionally, and I thought we did that really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe disappointing thing was we didn\u2019t get a third try in that early period, and if we had done that it would probably have been a slightly more comfortable afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cLetting them back in the way we did was a little bit disappointing, but we are delighted with how we fought until the end and to end up winning relatively comfortably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the defeat, Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson was pleased with his side\u2019s performance after they rested England<\/a> trio Luke Cowan-Dickie<\/a>, Tom Roebuck<\/a> and George Ford<\/a> ahead of their Champions Cup round of 16 tie at Harlequins<\/a> in a fortnight\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

Ernst van Rhyn and Dan du Preez crossed for the Sharks, and Sanderson said: \u201cI\u2019m disappointed with the result, but I\u2019m very happy with many aspects of the game and I\u2019m not just talking about the fight we showed right until the death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought our scrum functioned very well, especially in the first half. Defensively we held them three or four times, and with a bit of ambition and accuracy in attack, we could have come away to a very hard place and picked up a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sale saw Wales<\/a> international prop WillGriff John carried off on a stretcher six minutes from time with a head injury, and Sanderson said: \u201cI have got to check on him but he has got a bang on his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what I can expect moving forward, but we will follow the concussion protocols and see where he is at.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exeter Chiefs attack coach Dave Walder praised the way his team linked together after a two-month break from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-488560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}