Chiefs side to face Worcester

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs assistant coach Ali Hepher insists it's vital his side head into tomorrow's Aviva Premiership home encounter with Worcester Warriors with the right mental approach as they look to end a run of three successive defeats.

In what has been a testing period of fixtures for the Chiefs, back-to-back losses in the Heineken Cup against Leinster and Clermont Auvergne were followed up a week ago when the Devon club went down 23-15 to Westcountry rivals Bath at the Recreation Ground.

Hepher feels that in at least two of those fixtures [Leinster and Bath], the Chiefs could have easily come away with victory rather than defeat - and is hopeful minor tweaks made to the Exeter game plan will be sufficient enough to overcome the Midlanders at Sandy Park.

"Mentally I don't think we were quite there in that first half last week," admitted Hepher. "However, it showed in the second half, when we were on our game, that we can cause sides a lot of trouble. You could argue we could - and possibly should - have scored more tries in that second half, but generally we were pleased with that performance and with the way we have been performing recently.

"Now we hope to have a continuation of that this weekend in what we know will be another tough game against Worcester. All week we've emphasised to the guys that they need to turn up in the right frame of mind to get anything out of the game. As always we've tweaked parts of our game based on the opposition, but the main aim will be for us to continue making Sandy Park a tough place to come and play and making sure our mental approach is right coming into the game."

Certainly the Chiefs – who have yet to taste defeat on home soil in the Premiership this season – know  what it takes to defeat Richard Hill's side as last season they completed a Premiership double over the Warriors, including claiming a memorable 31-26 win at Sixways back in April courtesy of Sireli Naqelevuki's last-gasp, converted try.

Tomorrow the Fijian will once again be looking to wreak havoc on the Worcester rearguard as he return to the Chiefs starting line-up in place of the injured Jason Shoemark. Naqelevuki is one of four fresh faces head coach Rob Baxter has made to the side that took to the field at Bath.

The other changes see Chris Whitehead return at hooker in place of Simon Alcott; whilst skipper Tom Hayes and Aly Muldowney form a new pairing in the second row; with Dean Mumm reverting to the blindside flank as Tom Johnson is away on international duty.

And it's up front where Hepher expects tomorrow's battle to be at its most confrontational as he warned: "Worcester are always very strong up front, but this year they've really added to their attacking game as well; and they have quality at half-back. They have come into the Premiership and they've had a lot of investment put into their squad, so they are a strong outfit who can cause you real problems if you let them.

"At the same time, we need to focus on ourselves and make sure we turn up in the right frame of mind to deal with all of their threats. We have to bounce back from last week, especially the first half, and play with real intent from the start. We're under no illusions it will be as tough a game as we've had down here all season, but if we concentrate on getting our level of performance right, the result will normally tend to take care of itself in the long run."

Tickets for the fixture are still available online or via the Trading Post, which will be open until 4pm on Friday. The ticket office itself will be open on match-day from 12 noon.

CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE WORCESTER

15 Luke Arscott
14 Gonzalo Camacho
13 Sireli Naqelevuki
12 Phil Dollman
11 Matt Jess
10 Gareth Steenson
9 Haydn Thomas
1 Brett Sturgess
2 Chris Whitehead
3 Carl Rimmer
4 Tom Hayes (capt)
5 Aly Muldowney
6 Dean Mumm
7 James Scaysbrook
8 Richard Baxter

16 Neil Clark
17 Ben Moon
18 Chris Budgen
19 James Hanks
20 Dave Ewers
21 Kevin Barrett
22 Ignacio Mieres
23 Ian Whitten