Chiefs U23s to face Royal Navy U23s
By Sam Baumber
3/11/21
Exeter Chiefs Under-23’s coach, Ruairi Cushion, believes his team is determined to showcase what the Chiefs academy is all about, when they play host to their Royal Navy counterparts in a friendly at Sandy Park tonight (7:30pm).
After a physical and fast paced 80 minutes against Cambridge last week, the academy coach is driving his players through the development stages of their career in order to go into to bigger and more successful things.
Tonight, Cushion will be looking for more successful performances from his rising stars, who play host to the Servicemen in their latest of several fixtures planned for the developmental squad this season.
This fixture is a clash that the Irishman and his squad are truly looking forward to, particularly given their recent form and the experience and quality boost it can give each individual.
“We have a number of guys from Cardiff Met, Plymouth Albion, Cornish Pirates and Taunton,” said Cushion. “We really want to get high standard 80 minutes in an academy jersey for these players and we aim to give them a stage to progress throughout club and university.
“I’m really excited to see the guys play this evening. Last week we had a really good 80 minutes against Cambridge which was a very physical, fast-paced game. It was a great learning curve for some of the guys as a lot of them haven’t played that level of rugby before. A lot of our team are 18, 19, 20 years-old, so it’s really good to see on pitch learning.”
Cushion sang the praises for last week’s men, however this week he is eager to see the boys with less game time develop and show what they can do.
“We are very excited for tonight; we have the Navy come to Sandy Park every year. It’s a great fixture, it challenges our guys in many ways,” he continued. “This clash always challenges us, both physically and tactically, and we are looking forward to seeing some development from last week into this week’s game.
“We haven’t trained too much, but we are coming together before the game and put into place the little learning curves that we have discussed and see if we can showcase what Exeter Academy is all about.
“It’s great to see a lot of them come back together after a number of years. It’s brilliant to see the desire these boys have to wear the Exeter Chiefs badge and to represent their home club and this opportunity is a great steppingstone towards A-League rugby or Championship Rugby.”
Spectators can watch tonight’s fixture for FREE. Parking is available at the stadium on a first come, first served basis, but parking charges will apply. The Tomahawk Bar will be open, as will one of the food outlets.
