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Top French clubs may look unsettling, but Exeter is unwilling to meekly give up their European title. Even without a noisy home crowd, there are no soft playoff assignments in Devon and Leinster will find their hosts smelling more blood as they travel across the Irish Sea for next weekend’s tasty-looking quarterfinals.
Not that the Chiefs were even remotely perfect, but even with 20 minutes to go there was no question that Lyon would fly home empty-handed. With England blocking Jonny Hill leading the charge with a double in the first half, the final count of seven attempts by the defending champs was a more than decent return.
Rob Baxter’s team has won their last eight consecutive home games at this tournament and has not lost to French rivals in their last six meetings. Without the benefit of a proper preseason, this winter has occasionally been routine for them, but the return of Hill, Henry Slade and Luke Cowan-Dickie from Test duty provides a dash of tough class that visibly lifts those around them.
Any collective rust has also been banished and Baxter was conveniently pleased with the impact of Hill and Slade, who had previously been involved in just three club games this season. “They just add a little bit of something killer,” Baxter said. “I think we needed a game … I hope we are at least 10% better next week.” With no major injuries and last October’s European final win against Racing 92 still relatively fresh in memory, Leinster’s game has all the makings of a classic.
However, for Lyon, this was a European knockout debut and they began to gallop, taking a 14-0 lead in the first 10 minutes as Exeter suffered from some initial oversights. Full-back Toby Arnold was the first beneficiary, skipping Alec Hepburn’s tackle attempt to send French scrum-half Baptiste Couilloud to a distance of 20 meters.
The normally dependable Hepburn was also in the frame a couple of minutes later when a fumble allowed the visitors to regain possession and force a lineout on the Chiefs 22. Lyon again pinched the ball properly and clever handling put winger Xavier Mignot in the right corner. A well-hit second conversion by experienced Jonathan Wisniewski compounded the Chiefs’ pain.
If Exeter still didn’t appreciate the big target on their chests, it did now. A close-range penalty shot gave a try for the huge Hill, but a Wisniewski penalty widened the gap to 17-5 before the end of the first quarter. Giving good French parties reason to believe up front is rarely a route to lasting European satisfaction.
However, by the half hour mark, the momentum of the match had completely changed. Lyon’s mainstay, Vivien Devisme, was sent to the sin bin for collapsing a maul on her own line, and within moments, Hill had broken in for her second. Three minutes later, the hosts had picked up a third, a biting diagonal blast from Olly Woodburn setting up an open try down the left for teammate Tom O’Flaherty. Joe Simmonds got the difficult conversion right and his ocher shirt side was suddenly back in business.
Lyon’s discipline was wearing thin as well, as Hepburn’s rival Francisco Gómez Kodela was sanctioned for pulling his hair out. Back at 22 the ball came in and, after another extended period of pressure and a further hit penalty, Ollie Devoto passed between the posts for his team’s fourth try, securing a 26-20 lead at halftime.
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To Lyon’s credit, he held his ground, just a good tackle from Woodburn over Pierre-Louis Barassi and a crucial loss from Cowan-Dickie that kept the visitors from regaining the lead. Once again he seemed to push the Chiefs into action and within a couple of minutes they were back in their happy place, hitting the opposition line.
This time it was the relentless Dave Ewers who crashed, setting the tone for a final half hour of slow torture for the visitors that produced a penalty shot and late score for the well-deserved Woodburn. The bosses are not in their prime, but in a knockout situation they are still very difficult to take down.
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