London Welsh 0 – 52 Exeter Chiefs

Welcome back to the Aviva Premiership London Welsh have you missed it?? By the poor performance it looks like they won’t be here for long as Exeter Chiefs exposed the weak, poor defending of the Exlies and the most disappointing thing was the performance of birthday boy Piri Weepu and fly –half Olly Barkley.

The Chiefs scored seven tries with Thomas Waldrom scoring twice on his debut and tries from David Ewers, Sam Hill, Ian Whitten, Jack Arnott and Chrysander Botha plus 12 points from the boot of fly – half Gareth Steenson and 5 points from Henry Slade rounded off a dream start to the season for Exeter.

The first ten minutes of the Exiles return to the Premiership started well with Olly Barkley showing his experience and they could have had a try if it wasn’t for some great man defending from Matt Jess stopped Nick Scott’s pass to flanker Pete Browne.

From that moment it was all Chiefs, as some great build up play from fellow debutant Ryan Caldwell, after making a brilliant run and offload to keep the play going and once the ball fell to Steenson he simply eased through lazy defending by Welsh and passed the ball to Waldrom, whose try was converted by Steenson who gave the Chiefs a 7-0 lead.

The West Country club also had the chance to break the Welsh defence again, but the Premiership new boys also had their chance to get back into the game as Browne made a great run again but unfortunately no one was in support and the Chiefs were let off.

Once again Welsh paid for not taking their chances as Waldrom was attacking the defence like a winger with a strong, attacking run and some quick ball opened the Exiles defence and the former England no.8 used his momentum to carry him over the line and then adding Steenson’s conversion to double Chiefs lead 0 – 14.

10 minutes before the half Welsh had two chances to get on the scoreboard only for Barkley to kick both penalties wide while highly promising Henry Slade made sure Barkley regretted not taking the chance to get some points on the board by showing the former Bath and Gloucester player how it’s done kicking his penalty right down the middle of the posts and Exeter went into the half 0 – 17 up.

Half Time – London Welsh 0 – 17 Exeter Chiefs

Both Exeter and London Welsh carried on where they finished the first half as Welsh lost a line out and mixing the away sides quick ball and the tried defending of Welsh, New Zealand born Waldrom easily broke through once again and Ewers whose short range burst over the try line to give the West Country side their third try of the game and the bonus point plus Steenson’s conversion extended the lead to 0-24.

Hill joined the try scoring fun as the young centre ripped and stole the ball and strolling 25m to the try line and Steenson added his golden boot to further the Chiefs lead to 31 – 0.

Welsh looked to have finally scored their first try and got some points on the scoresheet but winger Seb Stegmann was ruled just short of the try line.

Then Chiefs scored two tries in four minutes, the first came from a maul on the 58 minutes as replacement scrum half Will Chudley passed the ball to winger Whitten, who simply cut pass the Welsh’s defense and used his strength to score and as always Steenson scored 0-38.

The second came from Chudley’s box kick with Arnott, within 10 seconds of coming onto the pitch, scored on his Aviva Premiership debut with Steenson making it 12 points from the boot.

Botha scored the seventh and final try on his debut for Exeter and it was sloppier defending which let the fullback brake the Welsh defensive line and touchdown under the post and Slade added the conversion.

Both teams ended the game with 14 men with Pablo Henn saw yellow for an illegal tackle while Ben 

White soon followed, but it was the Chiefs who left smiling and Welsh head coach Justin Burrell will be working on defending this week.

Match Details

Scoresheet

Exeter Chiefs

Try - T. Waldrom – 10 mins

Con – G. Steenson – 11 mins

Try – T. Waldrom – 26 mins

Con – G. Steenson – 27 mins

Pen – H. Slade – 35 mins

Try – D.Ewers – 45 mins

Con – G. Steenson – 46 mins

Try – S. Hill – 50 mins

Con – G. Steenson – 51 mins

Try – I. Whitten – 59 mins

Con – G. Steenson – 60 mins

Try – J. Arnott – 61 mins

Con – G. Steenson – 62 mins

Try – C. Botha – 68 mins

Con – H. Slade – 69 mins

Referee – Dean Richards