Cuthbert eyes greater rewards

By Mark Stevens
21/11/19

Alex Cuthbert believes last Saturday’s Heineken Champions Cup win at La Rochelle helped put to bed what had been a frustrating few weeks for the Exeter Chiefs.

Rob Baxter’s side kicked off their latest European campaign in fine fashion, claiming all five points from their Round One trip across the English Channel to the Stade Marcel Deflandre.

Up against a La Rochelle, who had yet to taste defeat on home turf this season, the visitors were in rampant mood, producing a fine all-round display that showed their qualities both in attack and defence.

Tries from Dave Dennis, Tom O’Flaherty, Henry Slade and Sam Simmonds were the obvious highlights, but so too was the defensive display of the Devonians, who were clearly keen to make up for their home slip-up against Bristol Bears in the Gallagher Premiership the previous week.

Naturally, Cuthbert was delighted with the performance, saying: “That’s a win we will remember for a while. It was a great team performance and definitely more like us. You could see we controlled the game from start to finish and it was much more of what you would call a ‘Chiefs-like’ performance.

“The last few weeks had been quite frustrating in terms of the way we want to play, but against La Rochelle we let it all out and we showed what we are made of.”

Now, the Chiefs will be looking to follow that up with an equally strong showing against Saturday’s visitors to Sandy Park, Glasgow Warriors, who themselves started their European season with a 13-7 win at home to Sale Sharks.

“It’s a good start for us, but we know we have to follow it up this weekend,” added the Welsh international. “We enjoyed the win on Saturday night, but it was back to work on Monday and getting ready for Glasgow.”

In what was a season’s best showing from the Chiefs, Cuthbert was quick to praise the efforts of his team-mates against the French outfit.

“We started really well and got the try, but then we came under a bit of pressure from them,” he explained. “The good thing was that we were able to hold them out in the first half and that went a long way to helping us get the win.

“The forwards put in a hell of a shift. They took control of the scrums, they got their drives going, and they got us on the front foot which, as a back, is all you can ask for. It allowed us to get into their 22 and when we did, we were able to take our chances.”

In a lot of ways it was the perfect performance and Cuthbert says more of the same will be needed against a strong Glasgow team.

“We set out targets at the start of the season that we wanted to be in the knock-out stages, whatever competition we play in,” added the British & Irish Lions star. “In the Premiership we’ve shown over the last few years that we can do that and that we can compete, now we want to do that in Europe.

“Getting to those knockout stages in Europe is liking Test matches, so it will be good for us to get there and really challenge ourselves.”