Premiership: Exeter 31-22 Saracens: Chiefs get first bonus-point win of the season
2025-01-26
Category: sports

Gallagher PremiershipExeter (5) 31Tries: Innard, Rigg, Wyatt, Roots, Frost Cons: Skinner 3Saracens (8) 22Tries: Elliott 2, Mawi Cons: Lozowski 2 Pens: Lozowski
Exeter got a confidence-boosting bonus-point win as they beat Saracens 31-22 for just their second Premiership win of the season. Jack Innard gave the Chiefs an early 5-3 lead after Juan Martin Gonzalez had been sin-binned, but Tobias Elliott replied for Sarries 14 minutes from half-time. Will Rigg's try put Exeter ahead again 11 minutes after the break before Elliott took advantage of an Exeter error to put Saracens five points ahead with 20 minutes left. But two Exeter tries in two minutes gave the Chiefs the space they needed to win the game as first Tommy Wyatt and then Ethan Roots went over.  Saracens' night got worse when Harry Wilson was sent off for a shoulder to the head of Rusi Tuima with eight minutes to go, and Exeter took advantage as Dan Frost was mauled over a minute later.Eroni Mawi was forced over after a period of pressure on the Exeter line in the final minute for a late consolation for the Londoners.Exeter's first bonus-point win of the season sees them move seven points clear of bottom side Newcastle in ninth place. They are now 11 points off eighth-placed Northampton.Saracens drop to fifth after Gloucester's win over fourth-placed Leicester, but they are just a point behind the three sides above them.
Having had a storied rivalry over the second half of the last decade as the two clubs battled for title after title, this game could not have been more different from those matches.Exeter had lost 13 of their 14 Premiership and European games this season - their worst-ever top-flight showing - while Saracens were shorn of many of their stars due to injuries and England's Six Nations training camp.Alex Lozowski hit a third-minute penalty for Saracens, but they were reduced to 14 men four minutes later when Juan Martin Gonzalez was penalised after lifting Jacques Vermuelen at the ruck as he landed on his head.With the Argentine forward in the sin-bin Exeter took advantage as Innard was mauled over from a five-metre scrum soon after.Impressive young winger Elliott put Saracens in front again as he went over in the corner from Liam Williams' pass after Hugh Tizzard's strong run had put the home defence to be on the back foot, allowing Saracens' backs the space to score.Gonzalez thought he had put Saracens further ahead, but his try on the half-hour was chalked off after a knock-on in the build-up.Trailing by three points at the break, the hosts retook the lead soon after the interval.A 51st-minute infringement saw Exeter kick to the corner, and from the resulting lineout maul Frost was held up inches short, but a few phases later, Harvey Skinner spread the ball out wide to Rigg who went over for his second Premiership try of the season.Exeter's fragile confidence took a knock when Ben Hammersley let Ivan van Zyl's box kick go through his arms and Elliott was there to snaffle the ball and go over for his second try.But just a couple of minutes later Paul Brown-Bampoe's barnstorming run down the right win set Wyatt clear for the third try before Exeter immediately struck again.Fergus Burke's mistake in gathering a box kick allowed Franco Molia to gather and he fed the impressive Frost who put Roots through for the fourth try.Any hopes Saracens had left were extinguished when Wilson saw red, and Frost got the fifth as he was mauled over. But Saracens did not give up and Mawi forced his way in from close range soon after Molina's yellow card for a ruck infringement.
Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Radio Devon:"It's a relief, but there's also an enjoyment factor to it."I'm pleased for the lads, I'm pleased for the club really as well and the supporters who've been here a bit through thick and thin for quite a while as well."That was an important victory for us to have some feelgood factor going into this next two-month block through the Six Nations."Without that I think we'd still be looking around going 'are we heading in the right direction?'"It was a much-changed Saracens side, but they were typical Saracens weren't they? There was nothing easy out there and, if anything, a much-changed Saracens side almost put more pressure on us to have to achieve something today."Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall: "It doesn't feel like a Premiership weekend is necessary on a weekend like this, when there are international camps and there are players away, when it is only an 18-game regular season."We said before the game that in lots of ways the outcome was immaterial to what we wanted from the game as we knew that come the end of the Six Nations when the Premiership recommences, we were going to be in the mix anyway, with seven games to go."We had a lot of unavailability through international call-ups and the big casualty list we have got, and we brought a bit of a younger and inexperienced team and we asked them to play big today and not play within themselves, and show how good they are, and not be cautious, and I thought they were wonderful."The energy in the team, in the first 40 minutes in particular, was absolutely outstanding. We had senior players who showed the way and we had younger players who played big like we asked them to, and that continued in the second half."And then we had that unfortunate 45 seconds or so where they scored a try from the halfway line and then another from the restart, and that's 14 points in no time at all."The whole energy of the ground changed and that was the game really."
Exeter: Wyatt; Hammersley, Hawkins, Rigg, Brown-Bampoe; Haydon-Wood, Townsend; Sio, Innard, Iosefa-Scott, Jenkins (capt), Capstick, Roots, Vermeulen, Fisilau.Replacements: Frost, Blose, Street, Tuima, Molina, Cairns, Skinner, Wimbush.Yellow card: Molina (79)Saracens: Williams; Elliott, Lozowski, Hartley, Jackson; Johnson, van Zyl (capt); Brantingham, Pifeleti, Balmain, Wilson, Tizard, Eke, Michelow, Gonzalez.Replacements: Hadfield, Mawi, Clarey, Sodeke, Tompkins, Simpson, Burke, Spink.Yellow card: Gonzalez (7)Red card: Wilson (72)Referee: Ian Tempest