Saracens vs Exeter Chiefs match report: Chiefs triumph but Sarries may still have the last laugh

Saracens 20 Exeter Chiefs 24

Exeter Chiefs celebrate their victory in the Aviva Premiership match against Saracens (GETTY IMAGES)

Exeter, living proof that a top-end Premiership club can be created without sending the financial bottom line headlong into altitude sickness territory, have enough momentum behind them to take maximum points from their final game of a captivating league campaign – a meeting with Sale, down in the depths of the West Country. The problem? Their fate may well be decided by selection policy in the East Midlands.

The Chiefs now occupy fourth spot, the last of the play-off positions, but the sums are still a long way from adding up. Saracens, one place behind only because they are three adrift on the points difference calculation, have the comfort of a last-day runaround against London Welsh, who have been losing by dozens ever since they returned to the top division in September.

However bad Sale turn out to be in Devon – and with European qualification still open to them, they may not be bad at all – it is barely imaginable that they will disappear under an avalanche of Exeter tries. Complicated as it may sound, Exeter’s best chance of extracting full value from Sunday’s nerve-shredding victory on the road depends on Northampton, already guaranteed a home semi-final after finishing top of the pile, picking a full-strength side for the local derby with Leicester at Welford Road and bagging the spoils into the bargain.

If the champions win, the Tigers will almost certainly miss out on the play-offs: quite an incentive, but maybe not enough of an incentive when balanced against the opportunity to rest some top-drawer personnel for the fun and games ahead.

Should the Saints decide to travel light, Leicester will surely do a job on them. Judging by their hard-bitten victory at Wasps on Saturday – a performance that Martin Johnson, Neil Back and other cauliflower-faced titans of yore would have recognised and admired – Ben Youngs and his team will be bang in the mood for a scrap. To resist them, Northampton will have to be at full tilt, not at half-cock.

“Yes, the arithmetic is against us,” agreed Rob Baxter, the Exeter boss. “If we’re not to depend on Leicester losing, we’ll have to better what Saracens do at London Welsh. But that’s for us to think about once we get home. What really pleases me at the moment is that the players have come through a scenario like this after failing to show the best of themselves over the last couple of games. We’ve played Sarries a number of times now, and they’re the ones who usually find a way to win when it’s tight.”

Baxter had a right to be a whole lot more than pleased, not least because he had felt unable to select his one current England international, the versatile outside back Jack Nowell, after being warned by medical staff that the Cornishman’s dodgy knee might not survive 80 minutes on Saracens’ unforgiving artificial pitch. This was a long way short of satisfactory, although the head coach was in no hurry to mount his high horse on the subject in public, but as it turned out, Henry Slade’s command of the No 13 role meant the Exeter back line missed precious few beats.

There were other contributions of note from the men outside the pack – deep in the final minute, the wing Matt Jess pulled off a try-saving tackle on Chris Ashton that may yet turn out to be worth a king’s ransom – but it was up front where Exeter applied the heat and exerted the control. This was no mean feat, given that some of Saracens’ stellar forwards, most notably the loose-head prop Mako Vunipola and the sensational young lock Maro Itoje, were performing at the peak of their powers.

Itoje really is a piece of work – a big enough piece, indeed, to run smack into a tackler as fierce as the Exeter blind-side flanker Dave Ewers and be the one still standing as the earth stopped shaking. It is therefore time to send a memo to the England boss Stuart Lancaster, along the following lines: “For God’s sake, pick the bloke. Soon as you like.”

Talking of clear signposts towards future red-rose selection, the two uncapped wannabes at hooker – Jamie George of Saracens, Luke Cowan-Dickie of Exeter – turned on the style in a compelling first half of cut and thrust. George’s break into the soft underbelly of the Devonian defence led to an opening try for Ashton; Cowan-Dickie’s energetic work in the loose reaped dividends when he touched down from a few hard-won inches to restore his side’s early lead.

He was involved again when Thomas Waldrom, poacher extraordinaire, claimed his 15th score of the season from a goal-line siege, and the “tank” made it 16 midway through the final quarter following a long spell of cat-and-mouse stuff from both sides. Gareth Steenson added the extras to take the visitors out of penalty range, thereby forcing Saracens to go in search of a third five-pointer of their own.

This they could not quite manage, partly because two of their best distributors of the ball, Alex Goode and Owen Farrell, contrived to chuck passes straight into Row Q, and partly because the Exeter defence was so passionately engaged.

Various members of the Saracens hierarchy acknowledged that the result went the right way, which was honest of them. There again, they knew what the mathematics were saying.

Scorers:

Saracens – Tries Ashton, Wyles; Conversions Hodgson 2; Penalties Hodgson, Farrell.

Exeter – Tries Waldrom 2, Cowan-Dickie; Conversions Steenson 3; Pen Steenson.

Saracens: A Goode; C Ashton, M Bosch (N Tompkins 54), C Wyles, D Strettle; C Hodgson (O Farrell 51), R Wigglesworth (capt, N De Kock 21-28 and 71); M Vunipola, J George (S Brits 48), P Du Plessis (J Johnston 48), G Kruis, M Itoje (E Joubert 71), K Brown (A Hargreaves 54), J Burger, J Wray.

Exeter: B McGuigan; I Whitten, H Slade, S Hill, M Jess; G Steenson, W Chudley; B Moon (C Rimmer 53), L Cowan-Dickie (J Yeandle 53), T Francis (A Brown 53), D Mumm (capt), M Lees (W Welch 57), D Ewers, B White (K Horstmann 57), T Waldrom.