Appleby's delight as Chiefs sink Sharks
By Harry Scott-Munro
20/12/20
Exeter Chiefs Women’s head coach Susie Appleby could not contain her delight as her side finished off the year in style with a 38-0 victory over Sale Sharks in the Allianz Premier 15s.
Running out in front of fans for the first time at Sandy Park, the Chiefs did not disappoint, running in six tries and producing a defensive display that underlined the strides they are continuing to make in this their debut season.
After a slow start, the home side turned the screw with first half tries from captain Linde Van der Velden and Sachiko Katoh, before Garnet Mackinder, McKinley Hunt, Alex Powell and Kate Zackary all crossed in the second half. American centre Gabby Cantorna wrapped up the scoring, landing four conversions from the tee.
Post-game, a beaming Appleby was quick to praise her side’s latest top-flight performance. She said: ‘’We asked the girls to do the simple things really well. We were a bit slow in starting from that respect, but actually once we got into our groove and started to really execute things, we were making a lot of ground.
‘’The most pleasing thing is we’ve made a lot of mistakes in that red zone in past weeks, but today we actually came out of their with points, so that’s really good.’’
Despite her obvious satisfaction with the result, Appleby could still see a few things to work on for her side, although she made sure to recognise the problem solving of her side on the pitch.
‘’Some of our accuracy in attack wasn’t quite where we’d want it to be, but actually what we did was just keep hold of the ball, go through a couple more phases and found space elsewhere.’’
In an often one-sided encounter, the Chiefs were able to feed off a bumper home crowd for the first time.
‘’It was a brilliant atmosphere,” added Appleby. “The Tomahawk Chop was going when they came onto the field and they said they said they could hear them throughout the game. When they did something good, they really were getting behind them, so they are really excited by the prospect that the fans are in but, hopefully, more and more are going to come in the future.’’
A common theme for Appleby and her side over the last few weeks has been the search for a perfect performance. Whilst Appleby wasn’t quite able to say it was perfect, she was incredibly proud of her side’s defensive performance, leaving an opponent scoreless for the first time this season.
‘’I think our defence was outstanding. We put them under so much pressure that they couldn’t play and it made them skew their kicks. We knew they were going to kick the ball at us and that gave us really good attacking opportunities.’’
Despite the result and performance, there was disappointment on the injury front for Chiefs with fly-half Taylor Black leaving the field with an arm injury just before half-time. Her unfortunate injury though did give an opportunity for Flo Robinson to grab some valuable minutes on the pitch.
‘’We had a couple of things to deal with. We lost Taylor just before half-time, but Patricia Garcia stepped in there and that gave Flo Robinson, a young player, a chance to play a full half at nine, which is just invaluable experience for her.’’
Looking ahead to the second half of the season, Appleby was bullish in her targets for her side.
‘’What we do now for the second half of the season is totally down to ourselves,” she continued. “We’ve come close to some big teams. We’ve just put away a new side very comfortably, but how can we be better in the second half of the season?
‘’We want to come top half and we’re going to put our stall out to push into the second half.’’
Exeter Chiefs will resume their Allianz Premier 15s season in the New Year, as they take on Westcountry rivals Bristol Bears away from home on January 9.