Whitten leads lacklustre Chiefs to hard-fought win
Champions survive stern test to halt losing sequence with win against Warriors
EXETER Chiefs came through a stern test from Worcester Warriors to win 21-17 away at Sixways on Saturday to end their twogame losing run.
Despite Worcester getting the better of the defending champions at the scrum and line out, Exeter – led by outstanding clubman Ian Whitten – dug deep to earn the victory.
After 15 minutes Exeter could have been forgiven for thinking it was going to be another routine win for the defending champions who at that stage were two tries up and dominating with relative ease as Worcester put themselves under pressure by conceding penalties and as a result territory.
With Worcester hooker Niall Annett in the sin bin for a no arms tackle, Scotland lock Jonny Gray crashed over from close range for the opening score of the game before Whitten finished off a stunning and patient attacking move for the second of the afternoon.
Whitten, playing at outside centre with Henry Slade away with England, finished in the corner after taking a wonderful offload pass off the deck from Sam Simmonds.
But the Warriors stayed in the fight and took their chances when they came, with canny Scottish fly half Duncan Weir, who came on as an injury replacement for Billy Searle after 20 minutes, leading the charge.
Worcester centre Oli Morris started the comeback thanks to a wonderfully slick switch move with Perry Humphreys which fooled everyone in the Chiefs defence and opened up a gap for the quick centre to glide through. Weir added five points with the boot from a conversion and penalty to make it just 10-14 at the break.
Exeter came out looking to make a statement after the break and did so with a moment of real attacking quality.
Lock Gray got his arms loose in a tackle and managed to get away a stunning offload to Whitten who linked up with centre partner Ollie Devoto. Devoto was brought down just short of the line by an outstanding last ditch tackle from Weir but his momentum took the Exeter man over the whitewash.
That try proved vital as Chiefs then had two uncharacteristic moments of madness moments later to throw the contest wide open.
First Devoto was yellow carded for a recklessly high tackle and then Ollie Woodburn produced the clanger of the season so far. Weir deftly landed a cunning grubber kick in behind the Exeter defence in side the 22 which saw Woodburn have to turn and gather the ball in his deadball area having carried it back over.
Rather than conceding the 5m scrum by touching the ball down, which undoubtedly have put his side under severe pressure, the winger tried to fight his way back over the tryline, only to get isolated and turned over by Weir who darted out of the ruck to touch down for a try from all of six inches away, which he then converted
For the remaining half an hour the game ebbed and flowed from one side to the other but the scores remarkably stayed the same, with Chiefs ending their two game losing run to move back up to second in the table behind Bristol Bears.
15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Olly Woodburn, 13 Ian Whitten, 12 Ollie Devoto, 11 Tom O’Flaherty, 10 Joe Simmonds, 9 Jack Maunder; 1 Alec Hepburn, 2 Jack Yeandle (capt), 3 Tomas Francis, 4 Jonny Gray, 5 Sam Skinner, 6 Dave Ewers, 7 Richard Capstick, 8 Sam Simmonds
16 Jack Innard, 17 James Kenny, 18 Marcus Street, 19 Don Armand, 20 Sean Lonsdale, 21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 22 Harvey Skinner, 23 Tom Hendrickson