Chiefs need to start firing - Parling

By Mark Stevens
18/10/16

Geoff Parling pulled no punches in a full and frank post-match assessment following Exeter’s European Champions Cup defeat at the hands of ASM Clermont Auvergne.

The England and British Lions star could not hide his disappointment after the Chiefs were beaten 35-8 by their French counterparts in Sunday’s opening Pool 5 fixture.

Centre Wesley Fofana led the way for the Top 14 leaders claiming two of their five tries, while Julien Bardy, Noa Nakitaci and Nick Abendanon also found their way over the home line with Morgan Parra and Pato Fernandez completing their scoring with the boot.

Gareth Steenson’s early penalty had given the Chiefs the ideal start, but it was not until the final play of the game that Rob Baxter’s side were able to register any further points, centre Sam Hill crossing for a late try.

Post-match, Parling was asked how we saw events unfold at Sandy Park.

“How do you think we saw it?” said the 32-year-old. “It’s not just this game, but we’ve not been firing at all this season and we need to figure out why. We need to do something about it because we’ve still got a chance of having a great season.

“However, if we keep going as we have been, stumbling along, playing the odd good games and doing OK, that’s not really what we want and we won’t do well.

“At the moment we’re playing well in patches, but then teams are getting easy scores against us and that’s not good enough.”

Having reached the last eight of the Champions Cup last season, as well as coming runners-up to Saracens in the Aviva Premiership, both Baxter and Parling acknowledge the Chiefs have failed to hit the same heights this term.

“Regardless of the result – even if we had won – the start of the season has not been good enough, so maybe a few harsh words need to be said,” added Parling.

“If you look at Clermont for example, they could win the league, they could win Europe, but they’d still not be happy with that. They would want to go again and again. At the moment we had a good year last year, but we didn’t win anything.

“We’ve got to push on now, we should be doing very well with a good team and loads of good players. We know we’re not far away, but right now it feels like we are far away, especially here at home. We feel we’ve let the fans down, but most of all we feel we’ve let ourselves down.”

Next up for the Chiefs is Saturday’s trip across the Irish Sea to face an Ulster side, who themselves will be looking to bounce back after they went down 28-13 to Bordeaux-Begles at the Stade Chaban-Delmas.

And Parling knows the importance of this latest encounter, saying: “We’ve got to go there and win, it’s as simple as that. We’ve got to be more clinical and we’ve got to be more ruthless, we’ve got to be better.”