Thorley turns on style to end Exeter’s hopes
Exeter 19 Gloucester 27
EXETER’S dreams of Champions Cup glory were blown apart by a Gloucester side that exposed all the current uncertainties in the former English champions’ camp.
The Chiefs rested players before this game, beat the same opponents 23-6 last month and were eager to relaunch their bid to scramble out of Pool Two and i nto the knockout stages.
But their performance when the stakes were highest was littered with errors and Gloucester doggedly took their chances with Willi Heinz, Jaco Visagie and Ben Morgan scoring the tries. Danny Cipriani supplied two penalties and three conversions, and in rookie wing Ollie Thorley they have a young flier in red-hot form.
Thorley’s trajectory — like that of his club — is emphatically upwards. He has scored four tries i n his l ast four games, including an 80-metre wonder score against Leicester, and he caused havoc at Sandy Park.
He made a 70-metre burst out of defence to put Heinz within five metres of the line and a second-half surge into Exeter’s midfield created the opening exploited by debutant Visagie.
The 22-year-old wing from Stow- on- the- Wold is i n the same bracket as England’s Jonny May when it comes to raw speed and has the potential to progress further.
‘He’s been tremendous — he’s scored tries, made a lot of running metres and he plays with no fear,’ said Gloucester boss Johan Ackermann.
‘I’m just so pleased that he can be in this purple patch of his playing career and long may it continue. Jonny May is very quick and it would be an interesting race. He’s not far behind and he’s worked on his speed. He looks fast in training and on the field.’
Exeter’s Rob Baxter admitted there are question marks over his side’s ability to cope with the pressure of a mustwin European occasion.
They opened with a riveting multi- phase attack that saw Don Armand go over in the corner, then regained the lead after the break when Nic White bolted round the side of a ruck.
But despite having welcomed back an England contingent including Henry Slade, Ben Moon and Alec Hepburn, Exeter lost control of the game and Tom Lawday’s 78th-minute try was an empty consolation.
‘The big question is whether as a group we can’t get our heads around the Heineken Cup thing just yet, whether we have convinced ourselves that things have to be so different that it is making us so inefficient as a team,’ said Baxter.
‘We win things because we are a bit of a machine, we’re efficient and the cogs run pretty smoothly together but it wasn’t like that today.
‘ Individuals are trying to change things and change momentum and set pieces didn’t really function. Some of that came down to people maki ng odd decisions.’ Baxter didn’t quite allow himself to admit that qualification for the quarter-finals is out of reach.
But, in a pool that contains I r i s h gi ants Munster and French league champions Castres, he is clutching at straws.
Exeter couldn’t claim a losing bonus point despite five minutes of play after the full 80. When prop Tomas Francis performed the scrum-half duties in his own half the result — a scuffed pass to Moon who knocked on — was all too predictable.
It summed up their day.