Match Reaction - Steve Salvin

By James Fowler
16/10/22

Exeter Chiefs Women’s assistant coach Steve Salvin praised the resilience of his side as they came from behind to score twice in the last ten minutes to secure victory over Gloucester-Hartpury in the Allianz Cup.

The reigning Cup holders struck through Maisy Allen and Clara Nielson, the second of which came with just a minute remaining on the clock, to secure all five points in this Round 3 encounter.

The Chiefs had earlier opened the scoring through hooker, Cliodhna Moloney, who bagged her second of the afternoon later on in the first half, yet again from a close-range driving maul.

Those two tries were cancelled out by Gloucester-Hartpury hooker, Neve Jones and a penalty from full0back Emma Sing just before the half time whistle, which added to her earlier conversion of Jones’ try.

The hosts had looked in full control 30 minutes into the second half, and they deservedly took the lead through a try from Rachael Lund and another conversion and penalty from Sing.

The Chiefs, however, eventually found their rhythm and they were rewarded when Allen and Nielson struck late on to secure a famous victory.

Post-game, Salvin outlined his pride at the resilience of his side, saying; “We hadn’t been in their half for the first 30 of the second half, so I think in some ways we probably expected that we were going to come off the wrong side of the result, but the resilience to then get those two tries in that last probably 5-6 minutes was absolutely amazing.

“What I think is relevant is that we had a disappointing result three weeks’ ago against Worcester and we tried to turn that into a positive in terms of things that we could learn and I think if that hadn’t had happened we wouldn’t have won today, so the girls deserve a huge amount of credit for how they’ve learnt and improved over the last couple of weeks.”

Commenting on the success of the driving maul which yielded three tries for the Chiefs, Salvin was keen to emphasise what an important aspect of their attack that particular aspect of their game has become.

“We see it as part of our attack, it’s such a crucial element of our game, but one thing that I always align it with is how many did we concede and the great thing there is our maul D (defence) which was really good today” he added. “We got good returns from our maul D, we got good returns from our maul attack and it’s a crucial element of our attack so to get three today was great.”

When asked how pleased he was with the development of this young squad with so many of the regular first team players being away at the Rugby World Cup, Salvin underlined his delight at how much the players have grown during this period.

“Really pleased, that’s probably the biggest thing for me. Regardless of scoreline there are players here that are getting opportunities they probably wouldn’t necessarily get.

“To mention two of them today, Abby Middlebrooke and Lizzie Hanlon the loosehead and tight-head, 20, 21-year-old kids going up against senior experienced Premiership props and doing exceptionally well, that bodes really well for the future of our team. As I said, I’m really pleased with those two in particular, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t others because there was a whole raft of them.”

Looking ahead to their final group game next Sunday against Harlequins, with a semi-final spot very much in their hands, Salvin outlined how important this competition is to this team.

“Well we hold the Cup, we targeted to win it last year, and we were fortunate enough to do it, so when you hold a trophy you want to retain it, so yeah it’s a big game.

“It’s another opportunity for these girls to get exposure to real top end competition but yeah we want to win, so we’ll approach it as we do every game and give us the best possible opportunity to do well.”