Chiefs side to face Gloucester-Hartpury
By James Fowler
14/10/22
Exeter Chiefs Women’s assistant coach Steve Salvin hopes some valuable learning has been taken on board ahead of his side’s return to action in the Allianz Cup campaign away to Gloucester-Hartpury tomorrow at the Alpas Arena (2pm).
Having kicked off the defence of their Cup crown with a 73-0 thumping victory over DMP Sharks, the Chiefs suffered defeat a week later when they were undone 23-21 at home to Worcester Warriors.
Although in control for a lot of that performance, the Chiefs were overcome during the second half, leaving the holders frustrated by the end outcome.
Looking ahead to this latest match-up, Salvin said: “We were really disappointed with the performance, both as players and staff, we underperformed, these things happen sometimes, but what we’ve tried to do is we’ve tried to take as much positive from it as we could.
“We reviewed it quite deeply, probably a little bit more so that we normally would, and we’ve picked up some bits and pieces around momentum in games and how we manage momentum in games. I think looking back now it probably wasn’t a bad thing to happen for the group that we’ve got because it’s a young group, obviously we’ve got the internationals away, so I think off the back of it they’ll take some really valuable learning.’’
Salvin believes that the reaction from the squad over the last few weeks following the defeat has been really positive, however he was keen to make sure that this translates into a good performance come game day.
“Training’s been brilliant, when you recap your sessions in your huddles the message has consistently been that training’s been really, really good.
“But we sort of caveat it a little bit in that that was the message leading into the Worcester game, and what we don’t want to do is have consistently good training weeks and then miss the opportunities come Saturday.
“I can say hand on heart training has been equally as good over the last two weeks as it was leading into the Worcester game, we just didn’t fire a shot, so we just want to make sure that this week we don’t miss the opportunity as we’ve done so much good work in training.”
With regards to tomorrow’s opponents, Gloucester-Hartpury, Salvin was wary of the threats they will pose.
“They’ve only actually played once so far this year against Quins, but they put 40 points on them. They’ve got a couple of players in that missed out on England selection, but I would imagine they were very tight selections with Sarah Beckett and Mo Hunt, and they’ll make a big difference for them because of that experience that they bring, so we know they’ve got some real quality in there.
“You know what you get with Gloucester, they’ve got a very good driving game and we need to make sure we manage that well and try and impose ourselves on them a little bit there. We know they’ve got some excellent strike runners and likewise we know that we’ve got to manage that threat that’s going to comes at us, and if we can do that we give ourselves a chance of a decent result.
“But I think what we need to constantly keep sight of at this point in time is that this is a learning process for a group of young girls, and regardless of what the result looks like at the end of the day as long as the improvement is continuous, and they’re continuing to learn and improve then that in itself is a pretty big win. It’s an exciting challenge and one we’re really looking forward to and hopefully we can make the most of it.”
Team news for the Chiefs see Irish international Edel McMahon come in for her first start in Chiefs colours. Her inclusion in the back-row means skipper Poppy Leitch moves into the second-row alongside Nichola Fryday as Charlie Willett is ruled out with a knee injury.
Elsewhere in the pack, Abby Middlebrooke gets her first start of the season at prop; while behind the scrum there is a new half-back pairing with Flo Robinson and Liv McGoverne; Sophie Langford moves into the centre and Merry Doidge starts at full-back with Katie Buchanan moving to the wing.
