Yeandle ready to 'go again'
By Mark Stevens
10/7/17
Exeter Chiefs captain Jack Yeandle says Gloucester is the perfect place to put his side’s title defence to the test.
The newly-crowned champions will get the new Aviva Premiership season under way at Kingsholm on Friday, September 1 and Yeandle is predicting a testing opener for him and his team-mates.
However, after a poor start to their campaign last year, the Exeter-born hooker feels it is the perfect setting to put things right this time around.
"It's certainly a real test for us to start," he said. "Gloucester away is always a tough game and it's been really close in the past few years.
"Fans will definitely love it as The Shed is always noisy and the travelling Tribe will have to come up and try to out-sing them - it's all very dependent on who wins the game as to who makes the most noise.
"It's certainly going to be a big test because they've got a new head coach and have recruited well over the summer. It's a perfect way to go up there and see what we're about this summer.
"It's going to be tough whatever team you have, it's all about really pushing ourselves and challenging ourselves to have a big start to the season this year.
"That was really where we let ourselves down last year - we thought it was okay to go out there and not quite get the results, where at the end of the season when it was quite close we realised we'd lost a few too many games.
"It's about really building on the success of what we achieve in preseason and getting the ball rolling into the first game, really throwing everything at it."
The Chiefs are already several weeks into their pre-season schedule and Yeandle freely admits it is tough, although it is only going to get tougher.
He said: "Pre-season is nice and tough, of course, we're certainly sweating out in Devon but I've got a sinking feeling that it's only going to get harder and harder.
"It's certainly going to ramp up and they're going to throw a nice beach session at us in Exmouth sand dunes, which is always fun.That's the necessary evil, though, and you've got to go through it to prepare yourself for the intensity of Premiership rugby - it doesn't feel like it at the time but it's definitely worthwhile."
