HIGH ON THE HOGG
New boy takes only 17 sizzling minutes to put Chiefs on verge of the last eight
STUART HOGG lasted only 17 minutes at the AJ Bell Stadium yesterday before going off with a head injury, but it was enough time for the Scotland full back to propel Exeter towards the Heineken Champions Cup quarter-finals.
The Chiefs clung on in the face of a powerful rearguard action by Sale to claim a tense victory which puts them in charge of Pool Two. Their third successive European win of this promising campaign leaves the Devon club on course to lead the faltering English challenge in the continent’s premier event, thanks in large part to their new signing.
Hogg managed to create one try and score another in his most telling contribution since joining Exeter from Glasgow. ‘He was absolutely on fire,’ said his director of rugby, Rob Baxter. ‘He was electric. He failed an HIA after he came off but we’ll go through the return- to- play protocols with him and hopefully he will be fine for next weekend.’
Baxter will want Hogg to be involved in the return fixture against Sale at Sandy Park on Sunday after this fleeting demonstration of his game-breaking class. His scorching break led to a penalty try in the 14th minute and two minutes later he kicked ahead, chased through the 22 and scored to put the visitors in control while their opponents were a man down with Tom Curry in the sin-bin.
‘He found space and looked like he could keep breaking them open,’ said Baxter.
Sale were in serious trouble when Luke Cowan-Dickie blasted over to put the Chiefs 22-8 up before the half-hour but the hosts also had a lethal weapon operating at hooker. Akker van der Merwe is among a raft of South Africans recruited by the Sharks and he was outstanding yesterday in a two-try performance which earned raucous acclaim from the sell-out crowd.
In the 22nd minute, Nic White’s attempted clearance kick from the Exeter 22 was charged down by Bryn Evans and the ball ricocheted into the path of Van der Merwe. He showed his mobility by side-stepping the last defender and bursting clear to touch down. Eight minutes later, the home hooker scored again from a lineout drive but, crucially, his compatriot Rob du Preez was unable to land either wide conversion from the right side.
The second half drifted by amid a torrent of errors and refereeing interventions until Sale built up a head of steam in the closing stages and put Exeter under considerable pressure. The Sharks’ scrum was in the ascendancy and Ben Moon was shown a yellow card as the Chiefs pack struggled to cope with the set-piece blitz.
Eventually, Sale captain Jono Ross crashed over for a try which set up a grandstand finish, but Exeter were lucky not to have conceded a penalty try before then as French referee Mathieu Raynal cut them a fair amount of slack.
That didn’t go down well with Steve Diamond, the hosts’ director of rugby, who quipped: ‘Hopefully we’ll never see the b******s (officials) again in Manchester. Joke, joke, joke! We’re just having a bit of fun.’
Offering a more serious verdict, Diamond added: ‘In the last 10 minutes, the decisions weren’t correct. We scored but it could have been 10 minutes earlier, then we would have had another go.’ In fairness, he had a point. Sale are not out of the Champions Cup yet, despite losing two of their three matches to date, but Exeter are storming towards the knockout stages in a pool where Glasgow are also still in the mix to qualify.
‘It’s probably a measure of where we are as a team that we’ve come through a battle like that,’ said Baxter, making no attempt to hide his relief.
‘The last 10 minutes were the longest 10 minutes of my life. Sale kept coming and we couldn’t relieve any pressure. I thought we tried to close the game out a little bit early and nearly paid the price. We had to show some fighting qualities to see them off.’