Match Reaction - Steve Salvin
By James Fowler
27/11/22
Exeter Chiefs Women’s coach Steve Salvin was full of praise for his side as they bounced back to winning ways a crushing 95-0 victory away to DMP Sharks in the Allianz Premier 15s.
Undone on the opening day by Gloucester-Hartpury, the Chiefs produced a ruthless showing in the North East, running in 15 tries and dispatching of their rivals in much the same way they did earlier in the season, when they won 73-0 at the same venue in the Allianz Cup.
Although pleased with the victory and the five points, assistant coach added that ‘he felt for Darlington’ and praised the hosts for their fighting spirit throughout the game.
“Five points, that’s what we came here to get and obviously we wrapped that up relatively early,” he said. “I feel for Darlington, it was a tough day for them to have to endure, but fair play to them they certainly never rolled over, they put up a fight for the whole of the 80 minutes, but obviously from our perspective it’s just good to get the five points.”
In a dominant display from start to finish, No.8 Maisy Allen led the way with a hat-trick of scores, but there were touchdowns also for Clara Nielson (2), Merryn Doidge (2), Katie Buchanan (2), Flo Robinson, Jodie Ounsley, Charlie Woodman (2), Rachel Johnson and Charli Jacoby.
With 15 tries scored, Salvin was understandably keen to highlight how pleased he was with the attacking endeavour of his charges, however despite the comprehensive victory, he still sees areas in which the Chiefs can improve.
“We played some nice rugby, we played lots of layers which was really good to see, which is difficult to defend. To be fair even though we didn’t concede any tries, we didn’t defend brilliantly. Darlington really challenged us a lot of the time, particularly around the edges, and they got a lot of offloads away, so they showed some bright sparks with their attack as well.”
Although this was no doubt a brilliant team display, there were some stand-out individual performances, with three players, Buchanan, Doidge and Allen all scoring braces.
“I just had a bit of a laugh with Katie (Buchanan), she scored two early on and never quite managed to convert it into a hat-trick. I thought Maisy (Allen) was outstanding today, likewise Merryn (Doidge) from 15.
“Lots of different players today were given the opportunity to thrive because they got some space to do that, but as I said it’s a job done, and the five points and no injuries is really important, but now we just move onto next week.”
Salvin is fully aware that tougher challenges await in the weeks ahead and he was therefore keen to emphasise that improvements are still needed from his squad if they’re going to be challenging for silverware later on in the season.
“There weren’t issues at the scrum, but I didn’t think we got the dominance in the first half with the scrum and to some degree that crept into the second half as well, so we’ll look to be a little bit more physical in that area next week.”
“As I said, they challenged us defensively numerous times, they had three or four line breaks off the back of challenges around those edges and getting those offloads away. Iit probably took us 25-30 minutes to get two or three tries on the board, so we weren’t picture perfect by any means, so next week will be a big training week to take us into Worcester.”
With players returning following the conclusion of the Rugby World Cup, as well as new players arriving into the squad, which includes Italian international prop, Silvia Turani, who scored on her debut, Salvin spoke about the challenges of reintegrating all these players and making sure they’re all ‘on the same page’.
“It’s just reintegrating them or integrating them if they’ve not been with us before,” he explained. “There’s the technical side of that in terms of the actual rugby coaching and trying to get them girls up to speed as quickly as possible. There’s the off-field stuff in terms of the girls that have been away that have been with us before reintegrating themselves and feeling comfortable again, and the new girls coming in likewise, so we know that there will be a little bedding in period, but once everyone’s on the same page we’ll be in a good place.”
Looking ahead towards next Saturday’s game against Worcester Warriors, Salvin was only too aware of the threats the Midlanders will pose having come unstuck against the same opponents in the Allianz Cup back in September.
“We didn’t play particularly well that day. They had a really good start (to the Allianz Premier 15s) last weekend against Harlequins (winning 28-14), so that’s going to be a really challenging game. It’s a home game, obviously we lost our first home game which was disappointing, so it’s a big week for everyone this week.”